The Duplicity of Hargraves The Duplicity of Hargraves "The Duplicity of Hargraves" is a short story by the American writer William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name: O. Henry. The story was featured in "The Junior Munsey", February 1902, and republished in the volume "Sixes and Sevens" (1911). Sixty-eight-year-old Major Pendleton Talbot and his practical spinster daughter Lydia move to Washington D.C. The Talbots have fallen from their aristocratic past in the South before the American Civil War and are now quite poor. The pair stay at a boarding house in the nation's capital. There they become acquainted with Henry Hopkins Hargraves,
William T. Porter 1856, another printer, George Wilkes, began a new sporting newspaper, which he called "Porter's Spirit of the Times", and employed Porter as editor. In 1845, Porter served as secretary for the New York Jockey Club, during the famous match race between the fillies Fashion and Peytona at the Union Course on May 15, 1845. Although the "Spirit" and the "American Turf Register" were known for their coverage of horse racing, Porter's main sporting interest for himself was fishing. Porter never married, and three of his brothers died before Porter himself caught a cold and died of consumption on July 19,