Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 709

Harry and Big Beat *Dime Novel Library* no. 98 (February 24, 1891), published by Beadle and Adams. The featured serial is "Harry and Big Beat" by Charles Morris, author of detective and adventure stories. The narrative follows Harry Hale and Jake Brown, bootblacks operating on a New York City street. Harry finds a leather wallet dropped by an elderly gentleman boarding a streetcar and pursues the vehicle to return it. The gentleman, a miserly figure absorbed in financial calculations, rewards Harry with only a dime, which Harry indignantly refuses and throws back. The wallet falls again during their altercation, and Harry retrieves it a second time. He decides to withhold return of the wallet until the man advertises for it with a substantial reward. Jake, angered, steals Harry's shoeshine box; Harry retaliates by beating him thoroughly. Chapter Two introduces Bill, a dissipated man in his thirties, who argues that honesty demands immediate return of the wallet regardless of reward—a position Harry questions skeptically.