comes under the full market price. It is not a common experience among

employers in this age. I don’t know that your assistant is not as

remarkable as your advertisement.”


“Oh, he has his faults, too,” said Mr. Wilson. “Never was

such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be

improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its

hole to develop his pictures. That is his 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 was going on outside,

and I was always glad of a bit of news.


“‘Have you never heard of the League of the Red-headed

Men?’ he asked with his eyes open.


“‘Never.’