Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 610

# Tony Sharp on Guard

This Beadle and Adams dime novel by T. C. Harbaugh features Tony Sharp, a sixteen-year-old street boy in New York who shadows wealthy broker Stephen "Old Skinner" Skinner from the Gold Exchange. When a mysterious messenger directs Skinner to a tenement house, Tony follows and discovers the broker is being blackmailed by a stylish woman named Mesas Marx, who extracts a thousand-dollar check from him. After Skinner refuses to help Tony's mother, the boy vows revenge and begins investigating. Tony suspects Skinner is being exploited and allies himself with a girl named Helen. Following the blackmailer outside, Tony observes her meeting with a man who attempted to rob an Italian boy—a crime Tony previously prevented. The serial combines detective work, urban crime, blackmail schemes, and moral conflict within the city's criminal underworld.