Darke Darrell, the Boy Detective — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

DARKE DARRELL. | 9 to come, making her promise good, for, as he listened, he felt himself grow gradually stronger. — The house was a miserable structure on Lee street, in the city of Baltimore, so near to the wharves that one could almost hear the flapping of the sails and the creaking of the cordage. The room was meagerly furnished, and indicated desti- tution, if not absolute poverty; yet there was, notwithstand- ing, an air of tidiness about everything. Mrs. Darrel leaned back in her chair, her eyes closed, her face white and serene, her right hand holding that of little Darke. Her talking had exhausted her; then, too, the wind had lulled, and the fire was burning more briskly; and so a sense of comfort had made her drowsy. Darke sat with his elbows resting on his knees, and stared vacantly in front of him, thinking of what his mother had said, thinking of the past, so full of suffering for him and for her, thinking of the future stretching drearily ahead, with its necessities and its struggles. Once or twice his face darkened, his eyes grew lumin- ous; a look so resolute came to his lips, that it made him look much older than he really was. Presently, a shuffling, stamping sound was heard in the hall; a sound of some person putting one foot down quite heavily, and the other quite softly. ‘‘ Mother, I hear one-legged Mike, the flag-man, in the hall,” Darke said. ‘«¢ What can be bringing him here?” Mrs. Darrell asked, rousing herself. The door opened, and in came a man with a wooden leg. _ He was clad in coarse clothes, and wore a slouch hat, set ‘comically to one side, or, rather, looking comical, simply because his hair was so frowzy, and his face so wide and flabby. Eomicbooks (<(0)