A tontine is established for a dozen children, a tontine being a kind of bet/insurance, money is put in for each to grow with interest and the last survivor is to get the lot. We watch the group dwindle until only two brothers are left. One brother is watched by his nephews who will keep him alive at all costs, the other lives in ill health and poverty as the only support of his fairly stupid grandson. Statues and bodies are switched, in the wrong boxes until everyone is sure someone has died. Now if they can only make it seem as if the other brother died first, hundreds of thousands of pounds (in Victorian England when a pound was a pound) will be theirs. 译文(2): 为十几个孩子建立一个养老院，养老院是一种赌博/保险，为每个孩子投入资金，让他们带着利息成长，最后的幸存者得到全部。我们看着他们逐渐减少，直到只剩下两个兄弟。一个兄弟被他的侄子们看管着，不惜一切代价让他活下去，另一个生活在疾病和贫困中，作为他相当愚蠢的孙子的唯一支柱。雕像和尸体被调换，放在错误的盒子里，直到每个人都确定有人死了。现在，如果他们只能让它看起来好像是另一个兄弟先死了，那么成千上万英镑(在维多利亚时代的英格兰，一英镑就是一英镑)将归他们所有。
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