CHAPTER XX.

Ben as a Banker--Faro Banker--Burglars--Counterfeit Money, and how Hogan didn't Handle it--Ben as a Doctor--Allen in New York City--Why the Fight Fell Through.

Soon after the election, Ben closed up his place in Petrolia, and separated from Kitty. She went on to Pittsburg, and he soon after followed.

At that time, for want of anything better to do, he went largely into the banking business--the faro banking business. In his tours about town he fell in with a party of first-class cracksmen, who were making ready for an extensive job. These men took Hogan into their confidence, and told him that they could make half a million dollars if they had the capital to carry them through.

Ben consented to furnish the money, and to become a silent partner in the proposed undertaking. The field of operation was the city of Baltimore, to which place the cracksmen, in company with Ben, made their way.

In the week which Hogan spent at the Utah House, he thought over the business which had brought him to Baltimore seriously and carefully. He reasoned with himself that all these men were bound to bring up sooner or later in prison or on the gallows, and he reached the determination that he would have nothing to do with the business. Hardened as he was, and elastic as his conscience may have been, he was not prepared to assist in robbery.

He told this to the burglars, saying:

"You must count me out of this job, gentlemen. I will furnish you the money for any legitimate purpose, but I must decline to hold a hand in the game!"

After his week in Baltimore, Ben drifted to New York. By this time his money was getting low, and he entered into a little of the speculation known technically as dealing in the "queer," and commonly as offering counterfeit money for sale. But the reader will observe, as the narrative progresses, that our hero never had a dollar of the "queer" in his possession. His plan of operation, while in New York, was somewhat as follows:

Having selected his victim, who was invariably a stranger in the city, he would approach him cautiously on the subject, and finally invite him to his room in the hotel. There he would produce a satchel, containing some genuine bank notes, show them to the visitor, and inform him that they were counterfeits.

"You wouldn't believe it," Ben would add, "but it's a fact. To the right sort of person, I am willing to sell this in large quantities for thirty cents on the dollar. Here are five hundred dollars, and you can take it along, satchel and all, for one hundred and fifty!"

If this offer was accepted--and in nine cases out of ten it was--Ben proceeded to carry out his fine work. This consisted, in the first place, of exchanging the satchel which contained the money for one with newspapers in it. Then the purchaser was informed that it would not be safe for him to carry the money himself, so he would better send it to his home by express. Ben would then accompany his customer to the express office, get a receipt for the satchel, and skillfully exchange this for a blank slip of paper, folded to look like the receipt.

When the verdant and would-be counterfeiter reached his home, he would find that the blank slip of paper was not good for the satchel, while the satchel itself was good only for what it would fetch at a second-hand store. The contents, that is, the newspapers, would not be of much value, except in a country where they used them for currency.

It will be seen that such a game as this called for a great deal of skillful work on the part of the operator. Not many men could have carried it through successfully, but Hogan found plenty of dupes, who were of course afraid to make any disturbance because they had been swindled, for the very reason that they were attempting a swindle themselves.

Ben also did more or less in the sawdust business--that is, sending a box of sawdust for those who wrote on for the "queer." And on a good deal larger scale, he offered some of the well-to-do merchants large sums of Mexican dollars, which he said he had in his possession, and which were all counterfeit; but which, having received advances from the respectable gentlemen who were anxious to handle this counterfeit money, he never furnished.

If there is any moral to be drawn from these incidents, it is that the men who were swindled were quite as criminal as was Ben, and the latter perhaps did society a good service by bleeding them.

Another curious method resorted to by our hero for raising the wind was that of suddenly becoming a physician. Not having any college degree, Ben conferred a degree upon himself. He left New York, went to Washington, put up at the St. James Hotel, and announced himself as the distinguished Dr. Cable, whose special line of practice was that of private diseases. Soon after the Doctor's arrival, he was one day standing on the hotel steps, when a young man came along and said that his services were needed at once in the case of a young lady who was very sick. Dr. Cable at once called upon this patient, and saw that she was suffering from nothing more serious than a bilious attack.

It may be well to explain in this connection that Ben really has a considerable knowledge of the human system, and has devoted much time to the study of diseases and their cure. Probably he is quite as well qualified to prescribe in cases of illness as are some of the alleged doctors who have bought a degree from one of the cheap medical colleges which flood the land. At all events, in the case of the Washington young lady, who was supposed by her friends to be seriously ill, Ben's simple remedy worked like a charm. She recovered in short order, and the distinguished Dr. Cable won quite a reputation for his remarkable cure. Whenever he was called to attend a patient whose case he did not understand, he would give a little magnesia or a seidlitz powder, and in this way not only avoid injuring anybody, but really did many good. As for other physicians, the distinguished Dr. Cable absolutely refused to hold any consultation with them. His time was too valuable to waste in talking.

One rich old bachelor sent for Ben one day, under the impression that he was at the point of death. As usual, Dr. Cable prescribed his simple and harmless remedies, and left his patient doing finely. It occurred to the distinguished Dr. Cable, however, that the bachelor was a legitimate bird to pluck; and he, therefore, secured the services of a confederate and proceeded to carry out this plan. On the day following Dr. Cable's visit, the confederate called at the bachelor's house, represented himself to be a physician, and disclosed the startling fact that the bachelor had been poisoned by Dr. Cable. The patient, of course, was very much frightened, and thereupon the second doctor offered to save his life for the reasonable sum of one hundred dollars. The offer was straightway accepted; more magnesia and seidlitz powders were administered; the bachelor's life was saved, and Ben and his confederate divided the hundred-dollar fee.

I may say that the last time our hero ever assumed to be an M. D. was just before his last arrival in New York. He was standing one day in Winan's drug store in Tarport, Pa., when a man entered, and upon inquiring for a physician, Ben told him that he followed that profession. Then he explained to the stranger precisely what ailed him, and prescribed--a seidlitz powder. All this was done in the presence of the doctor, and purely for a joke. Nevertheless, Ben took the two-dollar fee which the man offered him.

After his brief but by no means inglorious career as a physician, Ben left Washington and returned to New York. There, happening to meet Joe Coburn, the conversation turned upon Ben's fight with Allen.

"Would you be willing," asked Coburn, "to meet Allen again?"

"I am ready," answered Ben, "to fight him at any time, under any circumstances, and for any stake, be it love or money!"

This induced Coburn to exert himself to bring about a match; and while the negotiations were pending, he and Ben took a joint benefit at Harry Hill's. Ben then printed a challenge in the papers, in which he offered to fight Allen for two thousand five hundred dollars a side.

This challenge brought Allen from the West. After considerable talk, a match was finally made for one thousand dollars, to come off in New York City. The place selected was a barn in Thirty-second street, and the conditions were that only twenty men should witness the contest.

On the day appointed for the battle, Ben and his friends, including Budd Riley and Coburn, assembled in a saloon near the proposed fighting ground. The time appointed for the fight was ten o'clock in the morning. Promptly at that hour Allen, accompanied by Arthur Chambers, Billy Edwards, and Micky Coburn, made his appearance. He was not so prompt, however, in coming to time. He claimed that it was absolutely necessary for him to go down town to his hotel, for the purpose of changing his clothes. So he went--and that was the last seen of him. Ben and his friends waited around for a long time, but Allen must have found his toilet exceedingly difficult to arrange that day. The fight fell through, and from that time forward New York sporting men have taken very little stock in Tom Allen.