Boy Broker; Or, Among the Kings of Wall Street Read online

  Produced by David Edwards, Anne Storer and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from scans of public domain materialproduced by Microsoft for their Live Search Books site.)

  Transcriber's Notes: 1) Table of Contents added. 2) A 'TN' is noted within the text where Mortimer was incorrectly referred to as Randolph.

  * * * * *

  THE BOY BROKER

  or

  Among the Kings of Wall Street

  By FRANK A MUNSEY

  Illustrated

  HERBERT RANDOLPH EMERGES FROM THE CELLAR IN WHICH HE HASBEEN KEPT A PRISONER.]

  THE BOY BROKER;

  OR,

  AMONG THE KINGS OF WALL STREET.

  BY

  FRANK A. MUNSEY.

  NEW YORK: FRANK A. MUNSEY & CO., PUBLISHERS, 81 WARREN STREET. 1888.

  COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY FRANK A. MUNSEY.

  [_All rights reserved._]

  PRESS OF FERRIS BROTHERS. 420 Pearl Street, N. Y.

  TO MY DEAR FATHER, WHOSE RIGID NEW ENGLAND DISCIPLINE SEEMED TO ME AS A BOY SEVERE AND UNNECESSARY, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED WITH THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT THAT HE WAS RIGHT AND THAT I WAS WRONG. FOR THIS TRAINING AND FOR ALL ELSE I OWE HIM I CAN PAY THE DEBT BEST BY LIVING THE LIFE THAT WILL PLEASE HIM MOST.

  PREFACE.

  The best story for boys is the one that will help them most and givethem the greatest pleasure--the story that will make them more manly,more self reliant, more generous, more noble and sweeter in disposition.Such a story I have aimed to make THE BOY BROKER. The moral or lesson itcontains could be put into a very short lecture, but as a lecture I amconfident that it would prove valueless. Boys are benefited little byadvice. They seldom listen to it and less frequently make any practicalapplication of it. Imitative by nature, they are easily influenced bythose with whom they associate, and no associate, in my opinion, hasso strong a grasp upon them as the hero of some much prized book. Hebecomes a real being to their young, healthy imagination--their idealof manliness, bravery, generosity, and nobility. He enters into theirlives, their sports, their adventures, their kind acts, a companion, amodel so much idealized and admired that unconsciously they grow to belike him in so far as their surroundings will permit. In a good storyplot and action are but the setting to the gem--the means of conveying alesson in disguise in such a way that the reader will not suspect he isbeing taught. Let it once occur to him that he is reading a lecture andthe book will at once be quietly but most effectually packed away. Manyauthors, it seems to me, fail in their purpose by devoting too muchtime to the gem and too little to the setting. Others go too far theother way and write stories that give young readers a wrong idea oflife--stories whose heroes do improbable and unnatural acts. While mypurpose has been to make THE BOY BROKER interesting I have aimed to givea true idea of life in a great city. So much nonsense of a misleadingcharacter has been written about benevolent old gentlemen who help poorboys from the country that I have sought to turn the light of fact onthe subject and picture a little real life--about such life as a boy mayexpect to find if he comes to New York friendless and alone. He mightfind it much worse; he could not wisely hope to find it better.

  FRANK A. MUNSEY. NEW YORK, _September, 1888_.