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 (Attorney General) however, was quite typical for Porter's personality. He also turned down a knighthood and a chief justiceship among other offers. He retired from politics in 1873 and returned to Ireland, leaving a prosperous, democratic and stable Cape Colony with a rapidly growing economy. He settled in Belfast for his final years and died in 1880. The tiny town of Porterville, Western Cape, (est.1863) was named after him. William Porter (Attorney General) William Porter (1805–1880) was attorney-general of the Cape Colony and a drafter of its first constitution in 1854. William Porter was born in Ireland (Derry) on 15 September 1805