Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 645

Kit, the Pavement Sharp This serial by T. C. Harbaugh, author of the "Buckskin Detective" and "Dodger Dick" novels, opens in New York with Keen Kit, a resourceful seventeen-year-old street youth, enmeshed in the schemes of the "Prince of Gotham," the villain Oliver Owlet. The story centers on Owlet's criminal operations, coordinated through Old Penrod, a fortune-telling cobbler. Owlet retrieves documents from Penrod, offering payment for procuring additional papers—promising a thousand dollars while reserving greater profit for himself. Kit shadows Owlet through costume changes across the city, observing meetings with his accomplice Leon Layne. The narrative intersects with Floy, a working-class girl searching for her missing brother, whom the criminals hold leverage over. When Owlet and Kit encounter Floy surveilling the men, she demands her brother's location. Owlet threatens her with a sinister warning: silence means life, speech means death through an "octopus" criminal league. Kit assists Floy home, beginning to uncover her entanglement with Owlet's conspiracy.