with the Broken Nose, making of the Green Overcoat a sort of shield and offering at once. "I do 'umbly beg pardon, Mr. Montague, but I thought"
"Curth what you thought!" said the bearer of that ancient crusading name, in a voice so husky it could hardly be heard. "Curth what you thought! Come in!"
The Man with the Broken Nose slipped in with something of the carriage that a poor trapper might show who should take refuge from a bear in the lair of a snake.
"I 'umbly beg pardon," he began again in the darkness of the passage, and the old bearded apparition with the crusading name answered—
"Shut your mouth!"
The Man with the Broken Nose obeyed.
The cautious, shuffling slippers led the way. A match was struck. The little dangerous figure reached up on tip-toe and lit a flaring unprotected gas-jet. The only window giving upon that passage was boarded.
"Take it inter the light, Mr. Montague, take it inter the light!" said the visitor eagerly, making as though to open the door of a further room which would be flooded with the morning sun.
