Lord Cross is a respected and always very serious gentleman. In society he is therefore called "the man without a laugh". One evening, when he and his snobbish girlfriend from the British upper class visited the variety show "Zur Goldenen Kugel" in the somewhat disreputable London district of Whitechapel, in which its director Navratil tried to make the audience laugh with a comic buffo, the Lord's eyes fell immediately on a young gypsy girl. She is called Maryla and dances to the violin.