The Wrong Box

is a blackcomedynovelpublishedin1889. Twoelderlybrothersarethelast survivors of a tontine-a financial scheme where the final survivor claims everything. When one brother appears to have died in a train crash, his nephews desperately attempt to conceal a body to protect their inheritance. Meanwhile, a corpse gets shipped in the wrong container, triggering a farci cal chain of mistaken identities and panicked cover-ups as multiple charac ters scramble to dispose of evidence theyfear will implicate them in murder.How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of toil, consultation ofauthorities, researchesintheBodleian, correspondencewith learned and illegible Germans-in one word, the vast scaffolding that was first built up and then knocked down, to while away an hour for him in a railway train! Thus I might begin this tale with a biography of Tonti birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited from his mother, remark ableinstanceofprecocity,etc-andacompletetreatiseonthesystemtowhich he bequeathed his name. Thematerial is all beside me in a pigeon-hole, but I scorn to appear vainglorious. Tonti is dead, and I never saw anyone who even pretended to regret him; and, as for the tontine system, a word will suffice for all the purposes of this unvarnished narrative. A number of sprightly youths (the more the merrier) put up a certain sum of money, which is then funded in a pool under trustees; coming on for a century later, the proceeds are fluttered for a moment in the face of the last survivor.