A bandleader, desperate to get his band's instruments out of hock, promises the pawnshop clerk--an aspiring songwriter--that he'll let the band's female singer do the clerk's songs at a local club if he will let the band "borrow" their instruments at night.
In the 1880s, an unruly group of Cossacks stays in Sankola's house in Hämälä. Soon the group's leader Kuisma sets his sights on the house's adopted daughter Helina .
Fernando, owner of a large chain store, suffers from worrying dreams: he seems to successfully court saucy women, but just as he is about to win them over, a youngster comes on the scene and steals them from under his nose.