Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 71 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 71: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Content Analysis This is a page of running prose from chapter 55 of "Stalking a Ghost," a Victorian penny dreadful. The narrative follows Tom and a character named Dare as they navigate suspicious circumstances involving a hidden person (referred to as "Mimi") and a potentially threatening overseer named Egger. The text depicts tension at a supper table, dialogue in dialect, and Tom secretly bringing Dare to a schoolroom where someone is apparently being concealed. The prose emphasizes secrecy, surveillance anxiety, and melodramatic suspicion typical of the sensation fiction genre.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
STALKING A GHOST 5 make things harder for Tom. We have distress enough without complainings!’’ Nevertheless, there was some- thing very, very strange in the situation. She lived in hourly terror of discovery overtaking the poor refugee in hiding! Who knew but spies were about him, even now? Why did Egger come around the house so often — on trumped-up errands? Coming Indian-footed through the snow, he would be found — much too often — just out- side an abruptly opened door. He always had a pretext on his tongue; but he always ran into Dilsey. One night, as the two young people sat at the lonely supper-table, Egger — without knocking — opened the dining-room door. His demeanor was stolid and unconscious. He had “come ter ax how the ole lady gittin’ long. Hyurd she mighty poly?” His hardly concealed grin infuriated Tom. He rose, planted one foot on the fender, and turned his back squarely on the intruder, without a word. “Po'ly!” sniffed Mrs. Anderson’s maid, who was taking a tray from a side table; “do dis look lak it? Hom’ny- muffins; briled chicken; toas’; watermelon-rin’ perserves! — Gitterway, en’ lemme come by, Mr. Egger!— wid de whi folks vittles!”” There was a dangerous silence. Egger took his head out of the door; but not before Dare had surprised the malignant look he cast upon them all. Moreover, an hour later, Dare chanced to see the tray of supper, cold and untasted, on Troupe’s old desk in the schoolroom. It was Mimi’s supper, then, Dilsey had car- ried upstairs, not grandmother's! What did it mean? Why did Dilsey wish to fool the overseer? Dare was full of misgivings. A whole day passed, and Dilsey “could n’ stop ter talk.” At dusk, when Tom lit his candle at the fire in the hall, the lonely child whispered: “Mimi is with him. May n’t I goup there?” Tom nodded. ‘Come up to the schoolroom. Don’t bring a light. See that nobody ’s hanging around.” The schoolroom was in darkness. But ‘om opened that queer vestibule — a closet — and locked the door after they passed through it. A wood fire cast a rosy glow over CORNICLOO eS (EO) im