 The trio of con-artists – Subtle, Face and Doll – are self-deluding small-timers, ultimately undone by the same human weaknesses they exploit in their victims.Their fate is foreshadowed in the play's opening scene, which features them together in the house of Lovewit, Face's master.In a metaphor which runs through the play, the dialogue shows them to exist in uneasy imbalance, like alchemical elements that will create an unstable reaction.