In order to prevent his aged cousin (Old Martin) from leaving his huge estate to charity, Pecksniff travels from London to America to dissuade the dying man from such a mistake. But Old Martin is far from death's door, and is planning from pure spite to swindle the relatives he loathes out of all their money. To do this he employs Montague Tigg, a honey-tongued confidence man who has, up to this point, had little worldly success despite his many talents. He pretends to be an English lord, a man of means who's the foundation of the Anglo-American Disinterested Life Insurance Company--which, of course, is nothing but a sham. The laughs pile up as each of the characters tries to outswindle the others--until no one is sure who's who and what's what. An uproarious farce in the grand tradition.