diff --git a/lib/faye/websocket/protocol8_parser.js b/lib/faye/websocket/protocol8_parser.js
index ae3c415..1ec68fe 100644
--- a/lib/faye/websocket/protocol8_parser.js
+++ b/lib/faye/websocket/protocol8_parser.js
@@ -229,7 +229,6 @@ var instance = {
         header = (length <= 125) ? 2 : (length <= 65535 ? 4 : 10),
         offset = header + (this._masking ? 4 : 0),
         masked = this._masking ? this.MASK : 0,
-        stream = this._stream,
         frame  = new Buffer(length + offset),
         mask, i;
     
@@ -267,7 +266,7 @@ var instance = {
     }
     
     try {
-      stream.write(frame, 'binary');
+      this._stream.write(frame, 'binary');
       return true;
     } catch (e) {
       return false;