CHAPTER V.

Ben in Canada--He goes West again--Adventures in Cincinnati, Nashville, and Louisville--How he Sold the Colored Troops--Sets out for the Oil Regions.

On his way to the Canadian border, Ben met with an interesting little adventure. He was accosted on the boat which took him to Albany by a gentlemanly appearing fellow, who showed him "a peculiar kind of a tobacco-box" which he had just invented. He showed how it worked--how very simple it was to open it--and to prove its simpleness, offered to bet Ben twenty-five dollars that he couldn't open it in a given time.

It is almost needless to explain that this was the skin game which has since become familiar to everybody. It was fresher in those days, however, and as Ben had never seen the "racket," he bet with the stranger. Of course he lost his money. But instead of getting mad about it, he resolved to get even by bleeding somebody else. He offered the man ten dollars more for the box, and having been shown how it operated, he put it in his pocket for future use.

On the train from Albany, Ben ran across a verdant merchant with plenty of money, took out the box, and in about ten minutes' time had relieved him of a hundred dollars in cash. Then the merchant suggested that he would like to get his money back in some way, and proposed to act as "capper" while they fleeced somebody else. Hogan agreed to share with him, and before very long the first victim brought up a second one to be fleeced. From this individual the peculiar little tobacco-box won a hundred and fifty dollars. The capper pretended to sympathize with the loser, and Ben, meantime, strolled into the smoking-car, with all the money in his pocket. At the first station it became absolutely necessary for him to get off the train; and somehow he forgot all about dividing the hundred and fifty dollars with the capper.

Resuming his journey on the next train, our hero reached Kingston, Canada West, in good spirits. Almost upon the day of his arrival he stood on the street paring his finger-nails, when a mutton-chop whiskered Canadian, who was standing near by, drawled out with a very strong English accent:

"Ah--you Yankees are always picking your--ah--nails, and looking about for a chance--ah--to swindle somebody out of his--ah--money!"

"Vat vas dot you vas say?" demanded Ben, looking up from his nails, and assuming the German dialect; "I vas no Yankee--I vas a Deutcherman, yost comes ober!"

The Canadian looked in surprise, but Ben gave him undoubted proofs of his acquaintance with the German language, so that in the end he apologized for having mistaken the "Deutcherman" for a "blawsted Yankee."

"Yaw," continued Ben, "I vas a Deutcher lad, und I comes here to open a shimernasium!"

"A what?" asked the Canadian, looking puzzled.

"A shimernasium--mit clubs and dumber-bells und all dot!"

"O, a gymnasium, you mean," said the Canadian, smiling. "Well, perhaps, I can be of some service to you."

He was as good as his word, and introduced Ben to a number of citizens interested in physical culture, Lawyer Snooks among others. Through the influence of these gentlemen, Hogan opened a gymnasium in the skating rink. He found the Canadians, however, not over-generous in their patronage. An arrangement was finally made by which he was to instruct the students and others who came to him for five weeks without pay. At the end of that time he was to receive a benefit, and the proceeds, it was agreed, should be devoted to the improvement of the gymnasium. In good time this benefit came off, and a big success it was. Ben delivered a speech, and one of the priests spoke in warm praise of "Mr. Hogan, who had done so much for physical education." The affair yielded five hundred dollars in gold.

After duly meditating upon the subject, it occurred to Ben that, instead of applying this money he had himself earned to a gymnasium, it would be a good deal wiser to apply it to the improvement of himself, and he accordingly left Kingston, intending, one day, to return. Up to the present writing, however, he has not thought proper to do so.

Passing through Rochester, Ben set his face toward the West. He spent a short time in Chicago and from there made his way to Cincinnati. In that city he soon became known. He was a teacher of boxing in the gymnasium at Fourth and Ray streets, and fulfilled an engagement at the Palace Varieties, doing the stone-breaking feat and heavy lifting.

A performance was got up for his benefit by Messrs. Ashure & Peterson, the agreement being that Ben was to receive the money for all tickets sold outside, while the box-office receipts were to go to the managers. Ben hired a dozen men, well known about town, giving them a hundred tickets each; and the result was that, although the house was packed, the box-office didn't see any of the money. Hogan pocketed seven hundred and fifty dollars, and Messrs. Ashure & Peterson were thankful to get one hundred and fifty. It was at this performance that a stone weighing eight hundred pounds was broken on Hogan's breast--a feat which has never been equaled.

Falling in with Bill Sparks, Ben went to Nashville at this time, and opened a show under canvas next to the St. Cloud Hotel. The attractions offered were the cannon-ball throwing of Sparks, and the feats of strength and sparring by Hogan. So successful did this show prove that the receipts averaged between fifty and sixty dollars a day. Ben, however, was not satisfied with this comfortable income, and he looked about for other sources of money-making. A fat thing turned up in the Provost-Marshal's office--he got the handling of all the Government goods that passed through that official's hands--and it was by no means an uncommon occurrence for Ben to pocket an odd thousand dollars fairly made.

Meantime, he had gained an extensive reputation as a boxer, and this he turned to good account by joining with Dan Striker in a glove-fight, professedly for five hundred dollars. Striker appeared as the champion of the Emerald Isle, and was announced as the "Irish Giant;" while Hogan became the champion of his native country, appearing on the bills as "Benedict, the German Hercules." Intense excitement prevailed over the proposed contest. The city divided itself into two elements, the Irish population backing Striker, and the Germans swearing by "Benedict." Allen's New Theatre was secured for the exhibition, and when the night came the house was packed from pit to dome.

As the reader may readily imagine, the "fight" was pre-arranged, it being agreed that each man should score an equal number of knock-downs. Accordingly, the "Irish Giant" and the "German Hercules" each went down six times, and the excitement among the spectators became so great that words led to blows and a general fight ensued. Meantime, Ben and Striker cleared out of the theatre, carrying with them fourteen hundred dollars as the result of the venture.

While at Nashville, Ben also made a handsome sum by introducing certain famous gamblers to army officers, who were willing to pay liberally for the sake of opening wine with such sports. Whatever else they might have done while in the company of these agreeable persons is their business, not ours. Were the names to be given of these officers it would create a scandal which might injure their fair reputations, and so they are withheld.

We next find Hogan in Louisville. This was in the year 1865, just after the close of the war, and the city was filled with troops waiting to be mustered out. Among others was a negro brigade, which appeared to offer excellent material for our hero to work upon.

It happened that Ben ran across an agent from New York who had a large stock of advertising bills, made to look very much like a greenback. These were something new in those days, and had suggested a plan of operation to the agent. Ten dollars would have bought up the entire stock, which filled a good-sized satchel. With it he went to the quarters of the negro brigade, and offered to "stand in" with the officers if they would give him permission to exchange his "small bills" for the ones of larger denomination paid to the soldiers.

This offer being accepted, the agent stationed himself at the point where the negroes were paid off, and as they passed along in line, shouted out to them:

"Here you are, now. Anybody who wants small bills, step right up and get 'em changed!"

As the negroes had received their money in tens, twenties, &c., and as most of them wanted to use smaller amounts at once, they pressed about the accommodating stranger, crying:

"Yah you are, Massa, suah nuff! Done gwine me some o' dat small change, mighty quick?"

He did give it to 'em "mighty quick." The "greenbacks" were done up into packages of ten, twenty, fifty and a hundred dollars, and in an amazingly short time he had exchanged the entire lot of advertising notes for good money.

This little episode made it convenient for him to get out of the city. Doubtless the newspapers of Louisville will remember the affair, inasmuch as they devoted a good deal of space to it at the time. It may interest them to learn that the hero of the adventure set out at once for home, after having lost all his money to Ben before he had time to divide the spoils with the colored officers.

The job netted about twenty thousand dollars, and with this amount of money in his pocket Ben struck Chicago. Everybody was spending money freely in those days, but Hogan discounted the world. He "dropped" every dollar of his "boodle" in sixty days. How did he do it? That is more than I can tell. A hundred dollars for wine here, and five hundred for suppers there. Champagne suppers, faro--anything and everything which enters into the career of a high-toned sport when he is flush. That explains in part how the money went. Certain it is that it did go, in some manner, and at the end of the sixty days there was not a bank note left of the twenty thousand dollars.

It will be observed, therefore, that Ben added to the prosperity of Chicago by putting this money into rapid circulation. There would never have been any panic, you know, if everybody had spent money as freely. And so always goes ill-gotten gain.

His jolly spree in Chicago over, our hero set out for his old home, Syracuse. On the cars he ran across an acquaintance named Jim O'Neil, who hailed from Liverpool, a suburb of Syracuse.

"Where you bound for?" asked Ben.

"For the oil regions," was the answer.

"The oil regions--where's that?"

"Why, in Pennsylvania, of course. More life there than anywhere else in the world. Just the place for a fellow like you. Mints of money!"

This brief conversation set Ben to thinking. He made up his mind that the oil country was, in truth, just the place for a fellow like him, and he further resolved that he would go there as soon as he could.

He continued his journey to Syracuse, and a day or two after his arrival in that city fell in with a friend whom we will call Burke. This friend had just finished a term in the penitentiary, and like our hero, he was anxiously looking about for something to do. Burke wasn't exactly a saint, as may be surmised from the fact that he had just got out of prison. He was, in fact, a tough nut, and a fellow who took any kind of risks for the sake of putting through a job.

Ben proposed to Burke that they should get out for the oil regions together.

"But I'm broke!" said Burke.

"Well, raise what you can," answered Ben, "and I'll do the same."

Accordingly, that night the two adventurers put their wits to work, and the next day took the train for Buffalo. It need only be said that Burke improved the time so well that he carried with him a gold watch and chain. Whether some Christian gentleman made him a present of this, or whether he found it on the sidewalk, is not recorded. He had it, at all events, and with the money thus raised, the two friends reached Pit Hole, Pa., after encountering numerous adventures, and traveling the last forty miles on horse and foot.