Old Specie, the Treasury Detective; or, The Harbor Lights of New York — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

OLD SPECIE. 19 The amusement and profit the adventure had afforded him did not make the sum total. Lying on the desk with other money, he had found one of the gold certificate notes. Written upon one corner of it was a number. He believed it was an address. The first thing he did when he left the building of the green-goods men was to walk along South street until he-came to that number. The adjoining house was.used as a sailor’s board- ing-house, and when Old Specie saw that the build- ing to which the address had taken him was a som- ber-looking affair, ancient in its build, and appa- rently in want of a tenant, he made up his mind it would bear investigation. Having made a point he went away. At nine that night he again walked along South street, gay with lights and boisterous with the voices of the gathered clans. Here and there the bowsprit of some huge ship hung over the street, as the vessel lay snugly in her dock. Everything was nautical. The very air had a salty odor, and sailors were seen in every direction, many of them being for- eloners. Among such people the sharper gets in his wer for Jack ashore proves easy prey. Many a dark crime has old South street knoe in the years gone by. Over the East River hung the beautiful arch that proves a highway for myriads every day, and the electric lights on the bridge looked like a span of glory from some of the dark slums below. Here and there, in the neighborhood of the fer- Comichoo Sj Eo =|