His hand was upon the latch. With a curious, hardly audible snarl, Mr. Montague caught that hand a sharp blow on the wrist, and it said much for Mr. Montague's high standing with the Ormeston poor that the Man with the Broken Nose took no offence.
Under the flaring gas-jet Mr. Montague was turning the Green Overcoat over and over again.
"Give yer a quid," he said after about three minutes of close inspection.
"Why, Mr. Montague, sir!" the other had just begun, when he heard a hiss which formed the words, "Wish you may die!" and felt upon his shoulder the grip that was not like the grip of a human hand, but like the grip of a talon.
The Man with the Broken Nose was not prepared to argue. There had been one or two things in his full and varied life which if Mr. Montague had mentioned them even in a whisper would have made him less inclined to argue still, and he knew that Mr. Montague had a way of whispering sometimes into the ear of Memory things which a better breeding would have respected.
Mr. Montague knew the value of time.
