His only near relative was a widowed sister, Cynthia Findlay, living with her two children in St. Louis. Mr. Cripps had been supporting them for a number of years, both before and after her husband—a poor, disreputable fish—died of drink. She inherited nothing of value from Mr. Findlay except his absence, which was priceless but couldn’t be turned into money. She wouldn’t have parted with it, anyway. He’d always liked Cynthia, and she’d had a tough life of it. He’d have her as a starter for his adopted-family enterprise. Yes, and the children would come in nicely, too. He’d always heard that children kept things lively. Well, that was the way he wanted them. He had quite a lot of kin in the cousin line—mostly seconds. A male one consented to accept his invitation—for a time at least, and brought with him a sprightly wife and two quite charming grown-up daughters. Then there were two elderly ladies who might be called cousins-in-law, one being the widow of a distant cousin and the other her sister. He was delighted that they would come, for they were witty and cheerful and level-headed. And there were several youngish chaps in the remote distances of relationship. Cripps succeeded in getting two of them—one a second-rate sort of thing, the other a decent young fellow who was temporarily out of a job and was persuaded to try to find one in Boston. That seemed to be about the limit of what he wanted. The only children he drew were his sister’s two youngsters, Dorothy and Augustus, nine and five years old, respectively. After Mr. Cripps made sure he could get a decent lot to come and be a family to him, he looked about for a satisfactory place in which to establish it—and found it. One of the finest old places of the time it was, out Roxbury way on Torrington Road, and he picked it up at an extraordinary bargain. He had the house done over in various ways and everything up to date, said date being back in the Nineties, but they had a few things even in that benighted decade. Gas, electricity, telephones, half a dozen bathrooms, a hot water heating system, and a few little things like that, did him very well. For a couple of years or so he had to manage as best he could with horses—but after that motor cars came in. Movies, aeroplanes and radio he had to struggle along without. But not knowing about them made the deprivation less severe. Michael Cripps was a good spender and was bound to have the best of everything. A delightful host he was, too, reveling in the consciousness that he was taking care of people—giving them a good time. Besides his adopted family, he’d go out of his way to track down some unfortunate boyhood friend, or some far distant relative who hadn’t done well, and give him the time of his life.