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 Porter Burrall William Porter Burrall William Porter Burrall (September 18, 1806 – March 3, 1874) was an American politician and railroad executive. Burrall was born on September 18, 1806 in Canaan, Conn. to Hon. William Morgan Burrall (1779–1856) and Abigail Porter Stoddard (1783–1813), who had married November 4, 1803. His siblings were Elizabeth Burrall (b. 1804), who married Edmond S. Belden, Edward Burrall (1809-1814), and Abigail S. Burrall (1811–1813), who both died young. His paternal grandparents were William Burrall (1748–1825) and Elizabeth Morgan (1755–1829), of the Morgan family, who married in October 1774. His mother was the only child of his maternal