A League of Three: Boy's Detective Stratagems — page 67: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘ ; 4 ij ’ 5 a yt . ® ta) se} ar ar is H ‘’ ey 4 4 ’ Aanet ; ‘ a” 278) 7 a { ' . ’ s e ‘ * 4 CHAPTER VII. MADIE GETS INTO A HOT SERIES OF SCRAPES. THE lad had little difficulty in wrenching off the scente tls cover, as the house was old. He found a ladder, by which he descended to the attic floor and then he stopped to consider. He fell back on all his natural shrewdness and coolness. He was not talking, he was acting, and When it came to action he was usually equal to the occa- sion. He had a masked Jantern. He had procured the lantern at the suggestion of Patsy, and he drew his lamp and peeped around. ‘The house appeared to be scantily furaished, and the lad shd the mask of his lantern after having studied his course, and moved along in the dark. He descended to the second floor and listened a moment. It mad been his intention to enter the room in which the shadows had been reflected upon the curtains, but a spirit of curiosity caused him to descend to the parlor floor. There were no lights in the hall, but upon reaching the parlor-floor hall he saw a light shooting out from under the door of the rear parlor room. He stole along to this reom and peeped in through the keyhole, when he beheld a@ sight which would have made an excellent tableau for the foundation scene In a play or picture. Three men were seated around a table. One of them was experimenting with a pen. All three were evidently intensely interested, and occasionally they would utter words in Italian in a low tone; but our hero, who, as our readers know, had studied a little French and Italian, could understand just enough tc catch on to what they to. ‘The men were ‘practicing on a name. The intent was doparent: they were preparing to commit a forgery, and the artist was a dishonest man. ‘This latter discovery confirmed Madie’s suspicions as to the man’s * comicbook = —EE—— — — ———— ' ae 2 eee aa af : a = 5.