"No more than Wyatt Earp or Nellie Bly," Randolph supposed.
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Wyatt Earp and Nellie Bly are famously regarded as real people and not storybook characters.
"Wyatt Earp"
The mention of Wyatt Earp is probably meant to tie in to the picture of Doc Holliday in Nate Privett's office. But he's also a living person made famous by his exploits hunting down the Cowboys in Tombstone, Arizona. Unbeknownst to Randolph, he's a nicely ambiguous choice for modern readers because what we know of Wyatt Earp is almost certainly highly fictionalized from Hollywood movies. So Randolph isn't exactly clearing up the question as to whether the Chums are storybook characters or not.
"Nellie Bly"
Randolph probably chooses to compare the Chums of Chance to Nellie Bly because of her trip around the world, alone, in 72 days. Not that she was alone the whole way, steering empty steam ships and acting as the conductor on international trains! She just wasn't chaperoned and didn't have any friends. It was quite sad.
Nellie Bly also infiltrated an insane asylum, inventing gonzo journalism. Unless she just invented investigative journalism. Maybe if she'd done more drugs and had more sex while in the asylum, she could have invented gonzo journalism.
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