PREFACE
My Dear Boys:
Allow me to introduce to you my friend, Dick Hamilton.
Dick, here are the boys, thousands of them.
Boys, here is Dick Hamilton.
Now I hope you will shake hands and become good friends; not doing as I have sometimes seen boys do, when introduced, hang back and size each other up, as if distrusting each other.
Go right up to Dick, get a good grip on his hand, and squeeze for all you're worth. I'll wager you can't make him cry "enough!"
I know he will like you, boys, and I hope you'll like Dick. He's a fine fellow, if I do say it myself, for I'm a sort of relation to him. He's got lots of money, but he uses it in the right way, to help his friends, and it doesn't keep him from getting into trouble.
I have endeavored to give you a story of Dick and his fortune; how he tried to fulfil the strange condition of his mother's will; how he escaped the toils of the sharper, was the target for many cranks, as well as well-meaning persons; how he aided the "fresh-air kids," and, finally, when the
