Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 950

"Sam, the Steeple-Climber; or, The East Side Rough" by Jo Pierce. This serialized adventure opens with a gathering on New York's East Side, where Samuel Osborne, a renowned painter and mason known for scaling impossible heights, meets the Italian-born Nina Arvino, a newly arrived bride-to-be who possesses a valuable diamond family heirloom. During the reception, an elderly white-bearded man steals the necklace from an unlocked secretary drawer. Osborne and a thirteen-year-old neighborhood boy, Dickey Pratt, pursue the thief across backyards and onto rooftops. The burglar, revealed as a young man wearing a false beard, brandishes a revolver but is forced to flee when Osborne corners him. The pursuit continues as the criminals escape across the rooftops while the assembled neighbors join the chase.