Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 984

1896 · 16 pages

"Hook and Ladder; or, Scorching the Sheeny Fire-Bugs" By Harold Payne. Beadle and Adams, Vol. VI, No. 984 (June 2, 1896). This installment, "The Blaze," introduces Scaler Sam, a young fire-department detective working in a tenement district. When smoke appears in a dilapidated building occupied by Russian Jews and their second-hand clothing shop, Sam investigates and discovers a deliberately set fire: kerosene-soaked bedding with a suspended turpentine bladder rigged to explode. Moving quickly, he removes the bladder with a broom and knife, preventing catastrophe. A foolish Irish policeman arrests Sam at the scene, mistaking him for an incendiary, but Fire Captain Tucker arrives at the station and secures his release, defending Sam's actual role as an arsonist-detector. The narrative includes extensive dialogue in working-class dialect and concludes with the actual fire-bug, building owner Skrewbensky, being arrested.

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