At dusk in a village graveyard near Badajoz, the veteran gravedigger Garcias and his servant José labor to dig an unusually deep pit. José complains of exhaustion after moving earth for two days, questioning why any corpse requires a depth of fifteen feet. Taking a pause to eat supper at the edge of the pit, Garcias explains the history of the deceased, an infamous and solitary miser named Andréa Ferrero who cared only for hoarding coins.
Two weeks earlier, Ferrero approached Garcias to negotiate the cost of digging his grave in advance, claiming he wished to spare his heirs excessive expense. Thinking to amuse himself at the miser's expense, Garcias offered a fee of a quarter maravedis per cubic foot, with the rate doubling progressively as the pit deepened. Ferrero eagerly accepted and had an attorney formalize the agreement. However, when the notary calculated the mathematical total to two hundred dollars, Ferrero was overwhelmed with shock and despair. Refusing to pay, the miser locked himself inside his home, ceased eating, and wasted away in grief over the costly deal.
Garcias further recounts that Ferrero had kept a deep oak coffin padlocked in his bedroom for decades. When carriers moved the casket the previous day, its secret false compartment detached, exposing a massive hidden fortune that immediately enriched his surviving niece and aunt. As Garcias moralizes about the folly of wealth without enjoyment and orders José back into the pit, cries suddenly emerge from the coffin. Believing the devil or a ghost has arrived, the terrified gravediggers tumble into the excavation. Ferrero, who had only been in a deep swoon, breaks free of the box, discovers that his beloved fortune and original casket are missing, and flees toward the village wrapped in his shroud.