Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 490

This issue of Beadle and Adams' Weekly (Vol. XIX, No. 98, published 1886) features "Broadway Billy, the Bootblack Bravo" by J.C. Cowdrick, author of detective-themed stories including "The Detective's Apprentice" and "Disco Dan."

The narrative follows seventeen-year-old William "Broadway Billy" Weston, a bootblack on Broadway who witnesses a criminal plot between a known crook named "Sharkey Dan" Bingham and an unknown accomplice to commit murder. Shortly after, Billy encounters a runaway horse team on Broadway carrying a young woman, Miss Winnie Warrenson, daughter of wealthy merchant Hamilton Warrenson. Billy bravely throws himself before the maddened horses, catching the bridle and redirecting them, saving the young woman at great personal cost. Injured but heroic, he awakens in the Warrenson Fifth Avenue mansion, where Miss Warrenson tends to him, offering him better employment. Billy, proud of his honest work as a bootblack, declines her offer of a store position, declaring himself a businessman equal to any clerk.