diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 8d89d0da..990b9450 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ NEWS ( CHANGELOG and HISTORY )                                     HTMLPurifier
 - Autoclose now operates iteratively, i.e. <span><span><div> now has
   both span tags closed.
 - Fix bug with trusted script handling in libxml versions later than 2.6.28.
+- Fix bug in comment parsing with DirectLex
 
 2.1.3, released 2007-11-05
 ! tests/multitest.php allows you to test multiple versions by running
diff --git a/library/HTMLPurifier/Lexer/DirectLex.php b/library/HTMLPurifier/Lexer/DirectLex.php
index 86c0a211..e7f39361 100644
--- a/library/HTMLPurifier/Lexer/DirectLex.php
+++ b/library/HTMLPurifier/Lexer/DirectLex.php
@@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ class HTMLPurifier_Lexer_DirectLex extends HTMLPurifier_Lexer
                 
                 // Check if it's a comment
                 if (
-                    substr($segment, 0, 3) === '!--'
+                    strncmp('!--', $segment, 3) === 0
                 ) {
                     // re-determine segment length, looking for -->
                     $position_comment_end = strpos($html, '-->', $cursor);
@@ -185,11 +185,7 @@ class HTMLPurifier_Lexer_DirectLex extends HTMLPurifier_Lexer
                     $strlen_segment = $position_comment_end - $cursor;
                     $segment = substr($html, $cursor, $strlen_segment);
                     $token = new
-                        HTMLPurifier_Token_Comment(
-                            substr(
-                                $segment, 3, $strlen_segment - 3
-                            )
-                        );
+                        HTMLPurifier_Token_Comment($segment, 3);
                     if ($maintain_line_numbers) {
                         $token->line = $current_line;
                         $current_line += $this->substrCount($html, $nl, $cursor, $strlen_segment);