“Oh, is that the young one?” I remarked. “Yes; a heap of trouble; going after the last, I’m afeard.” “The same symptoms, eh?” “Just the same. Reg’ler handful she is, and no mistake.” This then was _not_ the “young un” Mrs. Oxleek had written about. This was a girl, it seemed. “Pray, how long is it since a medical man saw the child?” I inquired, I am afraid in a tone that roused suspicion in Mr. Oxleek’s mind. “Oh, you know, when he came last week—you’re come instead of him? You _have_ come instead of him, haven’t you?” “No, indeed,” I replied. “I’ve come to talk about that advertisement of yours.” Mr. Oxleek for a moment looked blank, but only for a moment. He saw the trap just as he was about to set his foot in it, and withdrew in time. “Not here,” he remarked, impudently. “But I must beg your pardon, it is here. You forget. I wrote to you as M.D.” By this time Mr. Oxleek had seized and lit his short pipe, and was puffing away at it with great vigour. “You’re come to the wrong shop, I tell you,” he replied, from behind the impenetrable cloud; “we don’t know no ‘M.D.’ nor M.P., nor M. anythink; it’s a mistake.” “Perhaps if I show you your wife’s writing, you will be convinced?” “No, I shan’t; it’s all a mistake, I tell you.” I sat down on a chair. “Will your wife be long before she returns?” I inquired. “Can’t say—oh, here she comes; _now_ p’raps you’ll believe that you’re come to the wrong shop. My dear, what do we know about M.D.’s, or advertising, eh?” “Nothing.” Mrs. Oxleek was a short, fat woman, with a sunny smile on her florid face, and a general air of content about her. She had brought in with her a pot of beer and a quantity of pork sausages for supper. “Nothing,” she repeated instantly, taking the cue, “who says that we do?” “This gentleman’s been a tacklin’ me a good ’un, I can tell you!—says that he’s got your writing to show for summat or other.” “Where is my writing?” asked Mrs. Oxleek, defiantly. “This is it, if I am not mistaken, ma’am.” And I displayed it. “Ah! that’s where it is, you see,” said she, with a triumphant chuckle, “you _are_ mistaken. You are only wasting your time, my good sir. My name isn’t ‘Y. Z.,’ and never was. Allow me to light you down-stairs, my good sir.” And I did allow her. What else could I do? At the same time, and although my investigations led to nothing at all, I came away convinced, as doubtless the reader is, that there was no “mistake,” and that Mr. and Mrs. Oxleek were of the tribe of ogres who fatten on little children. Singularly enough, as I revise these pages for the press, there appears in the newspapers a grimly apt illustration of the above statement. So exactly do the details of the case in question bear out the arguments used in support of my views of baby-farming, that I will take the liberty of setting the matter before the reader just as it was set before the coroner.