Guy Hammersley; or, Clearing his Name

About this issue

This serialized novel by Matthew White, Jr., published by Street & Smith in 1901, follows the eponymous protagonist through financial ruin and social degradation. After the Gotham Bank fails, Guy loses his inheritance and takes work as a restaurant assistant at Fox & Burdell's lunch room for seven dollars weekly, while his mother becomes a singing teacher at the Manhattan School of Music. When a chance meeting with his old schoolmate Arlington reminds him of his former prospects at Harvard, Guy's melancholy deepens. After Mr. Fox sends him on an errand to deliver an advertisement to the Fireside Favorite magazine offices, he encounters his boarding-house servant Eliza, who summons him urgently: his mother has been struck by a runaway express wagon while crossing the street. The novel begins its central mystery as Guy rushes to her aid, his straightened circumstances now complicated by apparent injury or danger.