Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 330 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 330: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 312 of *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil* This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful. The text shows a character named Nora Cashel Mouravieff, apparently in Barbados, who has just completed some significant written work (sealed papers locked away). She reflects on her decisive action, exchanges banter with an unseen companion about being called "the lame Goddess of Riches," and as dawn breaks, summons her servant Nannie to put her to bed, declaring triumphantly that what she has written is done. The passage then shifts to mention that elsewhere, in a cock-loft near stables, someone named Ishmael is conducting a separate "queer interview" of interest to the title character Tom.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
312 Tom ANDERSON, DaRE-DEVIL tering quill pen, sealed a sheaf of papers, and locked them in the bulky and unwonted escritoire. “Anything is better than indecision. It wears my nerves to harpstrings. ‘If it were done when ’t is done, then *t were well it were done quickly,’ 1s applicable to more things than murder and beefsteak! No amount of legal ingenuity will be able to undo my night’s work.”’ She picked up a sheet of paper scrawled across with her signature, “Nora Cashel Mouravieff, Barbados, B.W.I.”’ “T am glad it is so potential. Do you remember, my dear,” she sighed, “how you used to cry your eyes out over a hole in your little shoe?’’ And she dropped back among her cushions, quite worn out. “Listen to that black thing in yonder snoring like a drove of seals; — while I sit here playing at Destiny!” sighing again. “So Dick Knatchbull calls me ‘the lame Goddess of Riches,’ eh? That’s his latest mot at my expense. It was Plutus who was the crippled God of Riches, was n’t it? They should have named me Pluta.”’ A little dreary laugh. “*Pluta, Princess Oczakoff’ — not so bad, eh?”’ The candles burned to their sockets. Light stole through the silk and lace hangings. [he first sun-ray touched her clenched hands. Diamonds and carbuncles shot out im- portunate rays, dazzling her introspective eyes. She roused herself, and shook the bell-cord. The black came stumbling into the room — staring in alarm. “Excellency?” “Come put me to bed, Nannie. I’ve just finished the biggest night’s work ever done in Barbados. Checkmate, Codrington! Look, there’s the sun come up out of the sea, to set its great red seal to my signature! What I have writ- ten I have written!”’ Meantime a queer interview — in Tom’s interest, too — was taking place in a very different quarter of Hawk’s Nest. By the light of a battered old lantern, in the cock- loft over the stables, Ishmael was bartering for the ECONMMIECLOOOKS.(e©) m