His guide crept on slowly and cautiously, and Gray followed guided by the rope, which every now and then was pulled very tight with a jerk, that at first very nearly upset him over the parapet. There was a cold raw air blowing over the house tops, but Gray’s fears produced a heavy perspiration upon him, and he shook excessively from sheer fright at the idea of a false step precipitating him to a great depth on to some stone pavement, where he would lay a hideous mass of broken bones. Tug, tug, went the rope, and now Jacob Gray felt the strain come in an upward direction. He crawled on, and presently found that the rope ascended a sloping roof of slates, which at the first dim sight of it, struck him he would have the greatest difficulty in ascending. He was not, however, left long to his reflections, for a sudden tug at the rope which brought him with his face in violent contact with the sloping roof, admonished him that his guide was getting rather impatient. With something between a curse and a groan, he commenced the slippery and difficult ascent, which, however, by the aid of the rope, he accomplished with greater ease than he had anticipated. It happened that Gray, in the confusion of his mind, did not at all take into consideration that the sloping roof might have a side to descend as well as one to ascend, so that when he arrived at its summit, he rolled over and came down with great speed into a gutter on the other side, and partially upon the back of his guide, who, with a muttered accusation of an awful character, seized him by the throat and held down, in the gutter upon his back to the imminent risk of his strangulation. It seemed that Gray’s fall had given some kind of alarm, for in a moment an attic window at some distance was opened with a creaking sound, and the voice of a female cried,— “Gracious me, what’s that?” “Hush, for your life, hush,” whispered the man in Gray’s ear. “Well, I never did hear such a rumpus,” said the woman’s voice. “It’s those beastly cats again.” She had no sooner uttered this suggestion, than Gray’s companion perpetrated so excellent an imitation of a cat mewing, that Gray was for a moment taken in it himself. “Ah, there you are,” said the woman; “I only wish I was near you. Puss—puss—puss.” This call from the woman was a hypocritical one, and evidently intended to deceive the supposed cat or cats to their serious personal detriment should they venture to the window allured by such pacific sounds. There was a pause of some moments, then the woman exclaimed,— “Oh, you artful wretches; I declare these cats are as knowing as Christians.” The attic window was then shut with a very aggravated bang, and Gray’s companion took his hand from his throat as he said to him,— “Curse you, what the devil made you come down the slope with such a run?“ “I—I didn’t know it,” said Gray. “Come on and mind what you are about. I didn’t think you were so precious green as you are; come on, I say.”