Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 322 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 322: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a page of running prose text from page 304 of *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil*, a Victorian penny dreadful. The passage depicts dialogue between characters at a location called Hawk's Nest. A servant named Ish, formerly of Virginia, discusses his employment with the Princess Oczakoff, who owns horses at the estate. Tom then visits the Princess—described as an elderly, sharp-minded woman—and converses with her and a man named De la Jonquière about financial matters in Barbados, including references to "Codrington money" and a man named Dick Knatchbull. The dialogue uses exaggerated dialect for the Black servant character.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
304 Tom ANDERSON, DaRE-DEVIL whut I’s dishyer leetle Princess whut-yer-me’-call-’em’s boughten nigger,’ — scornfully, — “but’’ — Ish drew him- self up — “I wuz bawn de manservant of Audley Ander- son!— in Ole Faginia! De Lord knows it. En’ I ainh ewine tell no lie on Gord!” “T’m glad you’ve got a good home, Ish.” “Yasser. Dee’s niggers ‘nuff ter tu’n off all de wuk. Plenty er dem. Miss—er,” — pondering, — “Miss — er — rer—cyarn’ put no ’pennunce in merse’f ter call de name er dat leetle white ooman dee mek out I b’long ter. Her name soun’ lak er steer coughin’ up sump’n —”’ “The Princess Oczakoff t”’ “Dat de one. She specs me to look atter de horses: git out de feed: so fofe en’ so on. But I hates ter listen ter de sea a-quoilin’ down yonder; day in, day out.” It was the growl of the Englishman’s Mastiff! the surf in “the Cobblers.” Tom pressed a coin in the knotty. black hand. Hawk’s Nest was a blue-limestone chateau, the in- terior suggesting Luxury’s Nest. The Princess Oczakoft — tinier, older, frailer than even Tom had supposed — was, nevertheless, a very “fiery particle.” The visitor felt the big sea-blue eyes of the old mondaine consuming him. | “T felt as if I were about to turn to a puff of pink ether like a diamond in a furnace under those eyes of hers,” he told Eugene. “Tt is infinitely good of you to come. The Marquis tells me you've gone into a stupid counting-house, or some- thing?” “Piet Huyck’s, Madame la Princesse. The Marquis plays chess with Dutch sugar-merchants!”’ ‘Ih bien, there are other potentialities in Barbados be- sides the Codrington money. I am sick of the Codrington money.” “There are. Dick Knatchbull, for instance,” laughed De la Jonquiére. “The great, big dreadful! And a Codrington, at that.” ECONMMICOOOKS nO m