55777    This American had started from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a good turn.

55778    Then, again, I have heard it is no use your applying if your hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but real, bright, blazing, fiery red.

55779    Now, if you cared to apply, Mr. Wilson, you would just walk in; but perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a few hundred pounds."

55780    'Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that, if there was to be any competition in the matter, I stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever met.

55781    Vincent Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters for the day, and to come right away with me.

55782    He was very willing to have a holiday, so we shut the business up, and started off for the address that was given us in the advertisement.

55783    'I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes.

55784    From north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his hair had tramped into the City to answer the advertisement.

55785    Fleet Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court looked like a coster's orange barrow.

55786    I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were brought together by that single advertisement.

55787    Every shade of colour they were - straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real vivid flame-coloured tint.

55788    When I saw how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding would not hear of it.

55789    How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up to the steps which led to the office.

55790    There was a double stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could, and soon found ourselves in the office.'

55791    'Your experience has been a most entertaining one,' remarked Holmes, as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of snuff.