"I don't want no better friend than you been to me," said Montgomery in a sudden burst of grateful candor. "You've paid two fines for me, and you done what you could for me that time I was sent up, when old man Murphy said he found me in his hen-house."
Gilmore nodded.
"I was outrageous put upon! The judge appointed that fellow Moxlow to defend me! Say, it was a hell of a defense he put up, and I had a friend who was willin' to swear he'd seen me in the alley back of Mike Lonigan's saloon cleaning spittoons when old man Murphy said I was in his chicken house; Moxlow said he wouldn't touch my case except on its merits, and the only merit it had was that friend, ready and willin' to swear to anything!" Montgomery shrugged his great slanting shoulders. "He's too damn perpendicular!"
"He is," agreed Gilmore. "But what's this got to do with what you saw?"
"Not a thing; but it makes me sweat blood whenever I think of the trick Moxlow served me,—it ain't as if I had no one but myself! I got a family, see? I can't afford to go to jail,—it ain't as if I was single!"
"Get back to your starting-point, Joe!" said Gilmore.
"Who do you think killed old man McBride, boss?"
"How should I know?"
"You ain't got any ideas about that?" asked Montgomery.
Gilmore shot him a swift glance.