'Jailbird' takes place in the apartment of the singer Pépita who is struggling to ignore her cuckolded husband, Plumard, as she waits for the arrival of her admirer Taupinier. Into the mix comes the school-teacher Grumpard, posing pseudonymously as Lemercier, a debonair man-about-town, whose sole desire is to meet with the singer he admires from afar. The lovers though mistake him for a murderer-at-large, also named Lemercier, and go to great lengths to protect themselves from the threat they imagine he poses. 'Jailbird' was first produced in 1894.