The gambler pushed him back.
"Sit tight, Marsh!" he muttered between his teeth.
Mr.Montgomery, taking stock of his courage, prepared to adventure further with his testimony.
"All at once as I stood by that door lookin' out into the alley, I heard a kind of noise in old man McBride's yard.

It sounded like something heavy was bein' scraped across the frozen ground, say a box or barrel.
Then I seen a man's derby hat come over the edge of the shed, and next the man who was under that hat drawed himself up; he come up slow and cautious until he was where he could throw himself over on to the roof.
He done that, squatted low, and slid down the roof toward the alley.
There was some snow and he slid easy.

He was lookin' about all the time like he wasn't anxious to be seen.

Well, boss, he never seen me, and he never seen no one else, so he dropped off, kind of givin' himself a shove out from the eaves, and fetched up against White's woodshed.

He was pantin' like he'd run a mile, and I heard him say in a whisper, 'Oh, my God!'-- just like that,--'Oh, my God!'" The handy-man paused with this grotesque mimicry of terror.
"And then ?" prompted Moxlow, in the breathless silence.
"And then he took off up the alley as if all hell was whoopin' after him!" Again Montgomery's ragged cap served him in lieu of a handkerchief, and as he swabbed his blotched and purple face he shot a swift furtive glance in Gilmore's direction.