Billy the Hopper is a retired thief at the age of forty-eight who has been a faithful and diligent employee of a fashionable garage for the past year. Since he married his wife, also a minor thief back in the days, they decided to give up their criminal past and live the life of honest people. However, on a Christmas Eve of all days, Hopper slips and steals a pocketbook from a fellow passenger on a train, which sets off an incredible chain of events. In attempt to redeem for his new sin, Hopper keeps committing one misdeed after another, tangling himself more and more.

Meredith Nicholson (1866-1947) was a best-selling American author, a politician, and a diplomat from the state of Indiana, known for his national bestsellers The House of a Thousand Candles, The Port of Missing Men and A Hoosier Chronicle. With several other authors, Nicholson helped to create a Golden Age of literature in Indiana.