Beadle's Pocket Library No. 306

# Spotter Fritz: The Store-Detective's Decoy

By Edward L. Wheeler, this serialized story in Beadle and Adams Weekly (Vol. XXIV, No. 98) begins by following Fritz, an eighteen-year-old German-Jewish bound boy employed on the Shrimp family farm. When his term expires, Mrs. Shrimp dismisses him. The independent-minded Lotta Shrimp, differing from her stern mother and calculating sister Caroline, gifts Fritz forty dollars to travel to Philadelphia and seek employment. Fritz carries only a carpet-sack containing parlor magic apparatus. Boarding the train toward Philadelphia, Fritz observes the station crowd, noticing a young woman with a baby and two well-dressed commercial drummers. The OCR becomes garbled after this point, but the opening establishes Fritz's character and departure. The narrative appears to be a rags-to-riches adventure combining elements of German-immigrant humor with pulp fiction tropes of the era.