Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 512

This May 1887 issue of Beadle and Adams' dime novel presents "Jack o' Diamonds and his Game" by Lucius C. Harbaugh, opening with "A Harbor Mystery" introducing Dodger Dick, a street-orphan wharf-rat around New York's docks. Dick discovers an overturned boat brought in by the River Patrol and finds a fine diamond solitaire ring wedged in cordage. He shows it to his friend Donald Dustin, an ambitious young newspaper reporter. Dick rejects police involvement and insists on investigating the ring's mystery—three persons departed in the boat before midnight. Donald agrees to help. Dick's guardian, Mother Sturgeon, suspects the ring's value and schemes to exploit it. A mysterious gentleman, Silas Seldon Jr., visits Dick's lodgings with an urgent letter offering business to a "shrewd person" of Dick's age, requesting he visit immediately at a Beekman Street office. The serial continues with Dick departing to meet Seldon while Mother Sturgeon appears to conceal something in her wardrobe.