A Spirit of Avarice: Odd Craft, Part 11.
1906
Mr. John Blows has just lost his job, but fortune intervenes in the most unexpected way: he's mistakenly reported dead after rescuing a child from drowning. Back home, a grand funeral was held in his honor and kind strangers donated generously to support his "widow." So when Blows strolls back into town months later, alive and well, he faces a deliciously awkward question: should he correct the record, or let the myth of the heroic deceased pay dividends? W.W. Jacobs, master of Edwardian comic short stories, deploys his signature wit to expose the gap between public reputation and private desire. The satire cuts both ways, at Blows's transparent greed, yes, but also at a society quick to honor the dead but slow to notice the living. This is a compact marvel of mistaken identity and moral comedy, where every attempt to set the record straight tangles Blows further in the web of his own making.
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