main fault, but on the whole he's a good worker. There's no vice
in him."

"He is still with you, I presume?"

"Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple
cooking and keeps the place clean--that's all I have in the
house, for I am a widower and never had any family. We live very
quietly, sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads
and pay our debts, if we do nothing more.

"The first thing that put us out was that advertisement.
Spaulding, he came down into the office just this day eight
weeks, with this very paper in his hand, and he says:

"'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.'

"'Why that?' I asks.

"'Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of the
Red-headed Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any man who
gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than
there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits' end what
to do with the money. If my hair would only change colour, here's
a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.'

"'Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a
very stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of
my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting
my foot over the door-mat. In that way I didn't know much of what