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The Duplicity of Hargraves Synopsis

Old Major Pendleton Talbot of Mobile moves with his daughter Lydia to Washington, D.C., where he works on his book of reminiscences about Alabama, while Lydia scrimps to keep up appearances. Although the young government clerks ridicule the Major's dress, vaudeville actor Henry Hopkins Hargraves, the Talbots' boardinghouse neighbor, cultivates their friendship and listens attentively to the Major's stories. When a new Southern play opens, the Major splurges and buys tickets for himself and Lydia. Hargraves, playing the lead, imitates the Major's dress, mannerisms, and speech, and delights the audience, while infuriating the Major. He castigates Hargraves, who leaves, to Lydia's dismay. Later, when the Major is broke and refuses to seek a loan, an old slave from the Talbot plantation, Uncle Mose, arrives and gives the Major $300 which, he claims, is payment for a pair of mules which the Major's father gave him. The Major soon finds a publisher for this book, and Lydia gets a letter from Hargraves revealing that he, as Uncle Moses, repaid the Major for his help with the role.

The Unknown Quantity Synopsis

Mary Boyne, who made shirts at four dollars a week, had no place for love in her life - only despair and hate for the son of the man who had plunged her family into deepest distress. Peter Kenwitz loved Mary, but because he was a mathematician and a pessimist by trade, his love was as hopeless as her chance for happiness. Dan Kinsolving was the son of the man who ruined Mary's family. He loved Mary and gloried in her hatred for him. He set about moving the problem of turning her hate into love. He let X represent The UNKNOWN QUANTITY in life's greatest problem. Did he win?