Under His Thumb — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

“UNDER HIS THUMB. — | 73 seemed to him that he was not displaying so much courage as a detecive ought. “The night watchman don’t goin or out by this door,’’ he reasoned. ‘‘And if he did, he wouldn’t have left it unfastened. There must be somebody else here, unless they forgot to lock the door to-night, and that isn’t likely. Where is the watchman, any- how? He has to walk over the building once in so many minutes, and he carries a lantern. He must be asleep. If he is, he’ll get bounced if I give him away.’ Steve groped his way along the passage to a door, which yielded to his touch. Crossing this threshold, he paused to light the small lantern which he had brought. The lantern was a bull’s-eye, furnished him by Croly; and as he sent the focused rays ahead as he walked, the lad felt more like a dona fide detective than ever. Jf he only hada pistol now, his outfit would be complete. But that was forbidden him by the prudent detective. Boys carrying knives and revolvers were all well enough in stories, Croly said, but when it came to real life it was risky business. _ Steve was upon the ground floor, where much of the folding and lighter job work was done. He was startled once by seeing what he thought was a shape- less monster rise from amid the gloom of a distant corner; but the rays of his bull’s-eye thrown upon _ the object, showed it to be only a Gordon press—the same on which he was learning to exercise his legs, But the next moment he really did see something alive—something that glided out through an open » door in a stealthy, skulking fashion. ~-. If Steve had stopped to think he would have pur- Eomicbooks mn Eo