On the Wheel for a Fortune, or, The Wonderful Adventures of a Boy Bicyclist

By Albert J. Booth189417 chapters10 images

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Contents

• On the Wheel for a Fortune; or, The Wonderful Adventures of a Boy Bicyclist (opens in a new tab)

  Front page of Happy Days Vol. 1, No. 9 (Frank Tousey, New York, December 15, 1894), carrying the title of Albert J. Booth's featured serial and a full-page engraving of Horace Clifford racing his safety away from Earl Buckley's mounted band with Sylvia Duncan up behind him. The story runs from page 2 through page 4: the St. Louis widow's son wins a twenty-mile kodak race for a Globe touring commission, overhears Buckley plotting at a deserted house near Silver City, and is left guardian of the dying banker Lyman Duncan's daughter.
• A Little Fun. (opens in a new tab)

  Column of jokes and squibs, including the brakeman calling "Haverstraw!", the husband who grudges the $1.25 penknife his baby has swallowed, and Mr. Isaacs explaining that the ten-dollar blue suit which turned red in the sunshine is really a twenty-dollar changeable one.
• Interesting Items. (opens in a new tab)

  Miscellany paragraphs on the Chinese burglar who blows stupefying smoke through a bedroom keyhole, comparative death rates in the Crimean, Franco-German and American Civil wars, and the way Montana ranchers contrive to catch grouse.
• The Boss of the Boat Club; or, Dick Dashwell's Schooldays. (opens in a new tab)

  Frank Forrest's school-and-detective serial (commenced in No. 3), chapters XIX, "Clint's Confession," and XX, "The Coming of the Grand Mogul." Dick Dashwell runs the Gooseneck at low tide to Dungeon Rock at the dummy's bidding, while at Baymouth Academy Jack Hawk and Prof. Wiseman force Clint Tibbetts to admit what he saw on the night of the fire; the instalment closes on page 5 with Col. Tibbetts revealed as the Grand Mogul and Dick freeing Tom Crocker.
• Dick, the Apprentice Boy; or, Bound to Be an Engineer. (opens in a new tab)

  Percy B. St. John's railroad serial (commenced in No. 6), chapters X-XII. Mrs. Mains shows Dick the letter left with him as a foundling by "A Sorrowing Parent"; Dick then saves the Australian traveller Hamilton Clyde from a backing freight, and is bound hand and foot in the cab of Sixty-Six by the train wrecker Black Jake, escaping only by burning through his cords on the red-hot furnace door.
• Jack Wright and Frank Reade, Jr., the Two Young Inventors; or, Brains Against Brains. (opens in a new tab)

  "Noname's" serial of a race round the world for $10,000 (commenced in No. 1), chapters XVIII, "Stopping a Runaway," and XIX, "Conclusion." Frank Reade, Jr., Barney and Pomp find the traitor Dobbs has cut the helix bolts of the airship Storm King, then lose their lead saving a girl from a runaway horse near Scituate; Jack Wright blasts the Sea Serpent through the mud-choked Nicaragua tunnel and, after Forrest scuttles her off Thompson Island, swims ashore to reach the Boston Science Club fifteen minutes ahead of Frank.
• Terms to Subscribers. (opens in a new tab)

  Masthead panel for the number dated New York, Dec. 15, 1894: Frank Tousey's rates of $2.50 a year, $1.25 for six months and 65 cents for three, remittances to 34 and 36 North Moore Street, and a note that back numbers may be had direct at five cents a copy.
• What Have You Done? (opens in a new tab)

  Editorial appeal headed "Just Try and Think," inviting every reader, young and old, to write up in under 500 words some brave or charitable deed of their own and send it with a photograph to the Editor of Happy Days for free publication.
• The Rose of the West; or, Lance Thalberg's Mission. (opens in a new tab)

  R. T. Emmet's western serial (commenced in No. 8), chapter IV, "A Dying Man's Confession." By the smouldering ruins of the cabin Richard Thalberg tells Lance that he is really the son of the renegade Donald Gordon, who cut Thalberg's wife's throat and carried off the twin daughters Lily and Lola; the instalment resumes on page 11 with chapters V-VII, where Lance finds Old Mission massacred and joins the scout Black Jack (Jack Tift) and the old trapper Ned Purdy on the trail of the captive Rose Neville.
• Yellow and Black; or, The Two Bosses of Whackington Academy. (opens in a new tab)

  Sam Smiley's comic serial (commenced in No. 1). Dick Sharp's schoolmates stampede the horse carrying the Chinese servant Wing into town, and storekeeper Hanks then kicks him out of the door on the strength of Dick's note; on page 10 Wash the coloured servant is coaxed onto Dick's safety bicycle and sent flying along the walk.
• A Wonderful Hair Renewer. (opens in a new tab)

  Comic sketch by "Ed." A New Jersey farmer calls at the Happy Days office and tells Jack the porter how the three bottles of patent hair renewer he bought grew two inches of red hair on his mother's face, fur on the piano keyboard and hair on every egg his hens laid; Jack kicks him into the gutter for lying.
• Answers to Correspondents. (opens in a new tab)

  The editor's replies to readers on coin premiums and the 1857 flying-eagle cent, Cornelius Van Drebble's submarine boat of 1620, Jesse James's age and Cole Younger in the Stillwater penitentiary, the four-stroke funny-face rules, and a query from "Would-be Wheelman" about the two men touring the world with nothing but their wheels and the clothes on their backs.
• The Brothers. (opens in a new tab)

  Complete short story by A New York Detective. The twins Howard and Robert Van Dam both court Marian Duval; after Howard knocks down her bullying father, a body identified as Robert's is found in the woods and Howard is tried for murder, until Robert walks into court, strips off false whiskers and shows the whip scar that exposes old Duval's perjury.
• On the Night of the 9th; or, Old King Brady and the Man Who Was Never Seen. (opens in a new tab)

  Serial by A New York Detective, chapters XXXVIII-XLII. Jesse and Frank James, Clell Miller and Dick Little break out of Carl Greene's counterfeiter round-up and flag down a coal train near Ridley; Old King Brady and the scarred "man who was never seen" take Jesse in the hut, Cole Younger and Hobbs Kerry turn the tables from the express, and Greene's volley ends it. The tale closes on page 15 with Jack Skillman cleared, the Littleford bank money recovered and his marriage to Camille Winters.
• Handsome Harry of the Fighting Belvedere. (opens in a new tab)

  Nautical serial by the author of "Around the World on a Safety" and "Across the Continent on a Safety," chapter LVI continued. Harry, still weak, boards the Spanish vessel with Samson, Ching-Ching, Ira, Tom and Witta and routs her officers; the Belvedere loses five dead and seven wounded, Ching-Ching's neck is hauled straight after he butts an officer, and the pirate Captain Brocken, the "Black Doctor," swims ashore and escapes.
• Rare Foreign Postage Stamps. (opens in a new tab)

  Premium offer: readers who save coupons Nos. 1 to 15 from Happy Days will receive a package of fifty rare foreign stamps from Italy, Austria, Sweden, the Papal States and other countries, with every twenty-fifth package containing an extra stamp guaranteed to be worth from 50 cents to $2.00. Coupon No. 7 is printed on page 2 of this number.
• Don't Feel Disappointed If the Funny Faces You Send In Are Not Published. (opens in a new tab)

  Rules and specimens for the funny-face competition: a face drawn in black ink with only four pen strokes inside the blank circle on page 2, judged by the comic authors Sam Smiley and Tom Teaser with the comic artist Thos. Worth, for prizes of $50, $25, $18, $10 and $6. Specimen faces are reproduced from readers in Manchester N.H., Springfield Mass., Birmingham Ala., Brandon Vt., Beaver Falls Pa. and Omaha Neb.