Hobart Niles, an actor colleague of Ann's who is participating in the same acting workshop as her, is an insecure and somewhat shy man. He readily admits that he has a personality akin to that of the role he is playing in the workshop's stage production: a corpse. Although he and Ann don't know each other well, he presents her with a gift of an expensive looking wristwatch, which Ann says she can't accept. Ann learns that Hobart's gesture is not a romantic one, but one purely out of desperation to buy Ann's friendship as he would with anyone and everyone he wants to be his friend. Ann tries both to help Hobart over his insecurity and show him what he is doing is socially unacceptable. As Hobart's gift giving extends to others in the workshop and as his gift giving to Ann gets more expensive, Ann learns directly from him that the socially unacceptable nature of his gift giving is even worse as he doesn't buy the gifts, but rather steals them. As Ann tries to return the merchandise to the respective stores without looking like she's the thief, she learns of Hobart's true nature and what he really wants in life.
—Huggo