Sorry zentara, but I'm going to have to give up on this.  I tried it with Mozilla 1.2.1 (came installed with Linux) and with 1.7.11; both worked fine.  I also tried checking out version 1.7.7 with cvs, but got errors during the build.

I guess maybe it's time to switch to Firefox...?  :)

Update:  I finally got a copy of Mozilla 1.7.7 and installed it in Linux.  I think I now know what the problem was -- because the default line-wrap length is 70, the lines of code are getting wrapped, causing the lengthier pieces of the "k" to get moved to the next line.  To fix this, go to User settings and try a value of 80 or more for "Code Wrap Length".  (I have mine set at 90).  That should fix the "prematurely aged 'k'"!