Old Specie, the Treasury Detective; or, The Harbor Lights of New York — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

OLD SPECIE. 105 Old Specie had no desire to die. He had too much business on hand. These desperate criminals would just as soon tie him over a dynamite cartridge and explode it, or put him in a sack with a leaden weight, to be sunk in the black river. He hoped they would never have such an oppor- tunity granted to them. Listening, he wondered why he did not hear the creaking of some machinery. If they were printing the wonderful gold certifi- cates in the second cellar, surely he should hear sounds to indicate it. In this he failed. It dawned upon him that after all the league or brotherhood might be simply the distributing asso- ciation. Not one of them beyond the captain, and perhaps Ben, might know where the real work was carried on. If this proved to be the case, then the detective had more work ahead of him. How was he to see into the place? A cautious use of his little bull’s-eye lantern showed him that he was in a strange den. Above him were rafters of some sort. It looked as though there had once been a floor some six feet or so above, and the planks had long since been taken away. He wondered whether this did not offer hima chance to spy upon the assembly. | To think, with him, was to act. He made a leap upward, caught one of the heavy -beams, elevated his feet, and in five seconds more straddled it, GComicboo cS Eo