Under His Thumb — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

UNDER HIS THUMB. 85 os ‘ ‘make his way with bewildering rapidity Frock composing and press-rooms and passage-ways, until he could no longer hear the footsteps of his pursuers. The boy paused at last, breathless and trembling, in the passage leading to the counting-room. He glanced toward the door of the Sosa! unable to restrain a shudder of vague fear. The door was closed, and probably locked. Yet i in imagination he could see the stark, lifeless form of his benefactor, as he had discovered it lying upon the floor, behind the desk-railing. Steve had as yet only partially accomplished the purpose which had brought him hither. That purpose was to see if George Dyer returned to the printing-house to obtain several articles which, in the haste of his flight, he had left in the main composing-room; and also, if possible, to as- certain the way by which the fugitive made his en- trance and exit from the building. The first part of this errand Steve had already ac- complished. But the secret exit from the premises, which was evidently known only to the young fore- man, was yet undiscovered. Now that Dyer knew of the lad’s presence in the printing-house, -it would be doubly hazardous to shadow the former to his hiding-place. Steve Lawton knew that the building occupied by | Blain & Waldron was an old-one, and that it had previously been occupied for various purposes. And he had once heard that there was a secret room or passage somewhere, which had been designed for some unknown purpose by the eccentric builder. If such a passage existed, what was more proba- ble than that George Dyer had discovered the en- EOmMmIcbooKs.co mn