“And myself, I’m sick of the children stunt. Children are all right, so long as you just take them for what they are: young immature things like kittens and half–grown dogs, nuisances, sometimes very charming. But I’ll be hanged if I can see anything high and holy about children. I should be sorry, too, it would be so bad for the children. Young brats, tiresome and amusing in turns.”

“When they don’t give themselves airs,” said Aaron,

“Yes, indeed. Which they do half the time. Sacred children, and sacred motherhood, I’m absolutely fed stiff by it. That’s why I’m thankful I have no children. Tanny can’t come it over me there.”

“It’s a fact. When a woman’s got her children, by God, she’s a bitch in the manger. You can starve while she sits on the hay. It’s useful to keep her pups warm.”

“Yes.”

“Why, you know,” Aaron turned excitedly in the bed, “they look on a man as if he was nothing but an instrument to get and rear children. If you have anything to do with a woman, she thinks it’s because you want to get children by her. And I’m damned if it is. I want my own pleasure, or nothing: and children children be damned.”

“Ah, women—THEY must be loved, at any price!” said Lilly. “And if you just don’t want to love them—and tell them so—what a crime.”

“A crime!” said Aaron. “They make a criminal of you. Them and their children be cursed. Is my life given me for nothing but to get children, and work to bring them up? See them all in hell first. They’d better die while they’re children, if childhood’s all that important.”

“I quite agree,” said Lilly. “If childhood is more important than manhood, then why live to be a man at all? Why not remain an infant?”

“Be damned and blasted to women and all their importances,” cried Aaron. “They want to get you under, and children is their chief weapon.”

“Men have got to stand up to the fact that manhood is more than childhood—and then force women to admit it,” said Lilly. “But the rotten whiners, they’re all grovelling before a baby’s napkin and a woman’s petticoat.”

“It’s a fact,” said Aaron. But he glanced at Lilly oddly, as if suspiciously. And Lilly caught the look. But he continued:

“And if they think you try to stand on your legs and walk with the feet of manhood, why, there isn’t a blooming father and lover among them but will do his best to get you down and suffocate you—either with a baby’s napkin or a woman’s petticoat.”

Lilly’s lips were curling; he was dark and bitter.

“Ay, it is like that,” said Aaron, rather subduedly.

“The man’s spirit has gone out of the world. Men can’t move an inch unless they can grovel humbly at the end of the journey.”

“No, no,” cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he had half risen. “I really wouldn’t miss your case for the world. It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying so, something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps did you take when you found the card upon the door?”

“I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it. Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of the Red-headed League. He said that he had never heard of any such body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered that the name was new to him.

“‘Well,’ said I, ‘the gentleman at No. 4.’

“‘What, the red-headed man?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Oh,’ said he, ‘his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises were ready. He moved out yesterday.’

“‘Where could I find him?’

“‘Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17 King Edward Street, near St. Paul’s.’

“I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross.”

“And what did you do then?” asked Holmes.

“I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough, Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right away to you.”

“And you did very wisely,” said Holmes. “Your case is an exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear.”

“Grave enough!” said Mr. Jabez Wilson. “Why, I have lost four pound a week.”

“As far as you are personally concerned,” remarked Holmes, “I do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some 30 pounds, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by them.”

“No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank — if it was a prank — upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and thirty pounds.”

“We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. And, first, one or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first called your attention to the advertisement — how long had he been with you?”