This may have been partly due to that irreducible minimum of Original Sin
which (they say) is in all of us--and partly due to his cousin Stanley.

Now I don't mean to say for a moment that Stanley Woodward was a natural
born villain. I don't think people are born that way at all. At first the
idea probably struck him as a sort of a joke. "If anything happens to
young Josiah," I can imagine him thinking to himself with a grin, "I may
own this place myself some day.... Who knows?"

And from that day forward, he unconsciously borrowed from the spiders--if
you can imagine a smiling spider--and began to spin.

Did young Josiah want to leave the office early? Stanley smilingly did
his work for him.

Was young Josiah late the next morning? Stanley smilingly hid his
absence.

Did young Josiah yearn for life and adventure? Stanley spun a few more
webs and they met that night in Brigg's livery stable.

It didn't take much of this--unexpectedly little in fact--the last of the
Spencers resembling one of those giant firecrackers of bygone days--the
bigger the cracker, the shorter the fuse. Some say he married an actress,
which was one of the things which were generally whispered when I was a
boy. A Russian they said she was--which never failed to bring another
gasp. Others say she was a beautiful bare-back rider in a circus and wore
tights--which was another of the things which used to be whispered when I
was a boy, and not even then unless the children had first been sent from