CHAPTER XXII.

Another Challenge to Allen--Brookville and Indiana Adventures.

Upon his arrival in Syracuse, Ben went into training with the expectation of making a match with his old antagonist, Tom Allen. His ground for believing that such a match might be brought about was the suspicion that the Allen-Rourke fight, which was then under way, would fall through. In that case, Ben wanted to be ready to step in, and offer to fight Allen immediately.

During the four weeks he thus spent in training, he was assisted by Tommy Foster, who was himself an excellent athlete, as was shown from the fact that, weighing only one hundred and forty pounds, he could put up a one hundred and sixty pound bell.

At the end of his month's training Ben went to Pittsburg. Meantime Allen's fight with Rourke had, as was anticipated, fallen through. Ben, therefore, as soon as he reached Pittsburg, issued the following challenge:

"I see that the Allen-Rourke fight did not take place as proposed. A large number of sporting men having assembled to witness this contest, I herewith propose, in order to prevent them from being disappointed, to take Rourke's place and fight Allen for five hundred or one thousand dollars, or any other sum which he may name. The fight to take place immediately upon the acceptance of this challenge."

Allen's excuse for refusing to take up with Ben's offer was that he had business to attend to at home, and so could not spare the time to fight anybody.

Disappointed in thus failing again to bring Allen to a square encounter, Ben fell back upon his old resource, and opened a gymnasium in Pittsburg, on Fourth Avenue. In response to a telegram, George Rourke went to the city for the purpose of giving a sparring exhibition with Hogan. Great excitement was awakened in Pittsburg over this proposed match, but the Mayor refused to grant a license for the exhibition. Ben therefore lost seventy-five dollars on a speculation which he had hoped would return him a fat thing.

The week following, however, Rourke succeeded in getting a license to give an exhibition at the Academy of Music, and on that occasion Ben made his appearance, winding up the show by a bout with Rourke. The latter proved to be a clever boxer, and the set-to was an interesting one.

Why the Mayor of Pittsburg should have refused to grant Hogan a license, does not make itself wholly apparent. He may have been influenced by others, although it is at least certain that he entertained no very friendly feelings toward Ben. This was shown on numerous occasions, when the Mayor had an opportunity to molest or annoy Hogan.

Ben called upon the official, and spoke his mind pretty freely.

"You have no right," he said, "to refuse me a license. I have done nothing out of the way here, as you very well know, and I am trying simply to make an honest living. You may be the Mayor of Pittsburg, but you are not king any more than I am. You are a common citizen, with the same rights as others. It may be well for you to keep that fact in mind!"

Some hot words followed on both sides, and the result of the whole thing was, that the Mayor soon after had Ben arrested and locked up--for what offense it would have been exceedingly difficult to tell.

In the same cell with Ben were a couple of strangers, with whom he naturally fell into conversation.

"What are you in for?" he asked.

"Don't know!" was the rejoinder.

"What are you in for?"

"Don't know!" answered Ben.

"Well, what sort of a man is this Mayor, anyway?"

"If you want my private opinion of him," replied Ben, "I can give it to you in a very few words. He is an ignorant bull-head, and no more fit to be Mayor of the city than a lamp-post. He might do for sweeper in the office, but that's all. Before he was elected Mayor, he was a useful citizen in a humble sphere; now he is noted for his severity."

Right in the midst of this conversation, the Mayor himself made his appearance at the cell door.

"So, ho!" he said, "I've got you now!"

"The h---- you have!" answered Ben.

"Yes, sir, I've got you!" repeated the Mayor, swelling with official dignity; "and I mean to make it very warm for you."

"What have I ever done," asked Ben, "that you should seek to persecute me in this manner? Have I ever been drunk or disorderly?"

"No," interrupted the Mayor; "you're a good deal too sharp to get drunk."

"Then I should like to know what I have done to justify my being locked up. The only harm I have done in Pittsburg is the harm I have done myself by spending fifty thousand dollars, more or less, at your faro banks and bar-rooms. If I had the money back now, you can rest assured that I wouldn't put it in circulation in this town."

In spite of his threat to make it warm for Hogan, the latter was released from custody on condition that he would leave the city. This he did by crossing over the river to Allegheny, and returning again the next morning. He remained some two weeks longer in the city, and experienced no further trouble from the Mayor.

Ben next went to Brookville, and there gave lessons in gymnastics. During the six weeks which he spent between this town and Reynoldsville, the crusade movement against whiskey broke out in active form in that part of Pennsylvania. It was at the time that Hartranft was running for Governor, and when he was anxious to conciliate the temperance vote. He spoke one Sunday night in Brookville, and Ben was among those who attended the meeting.

On the next day the women pushed their work among the saloons, the town being crowded on account of the holding of the court. In one of the bar-rooms where the crusaders operated, and where Ben chanced to be present, some of the bystanders insulted the women in their work. Picking out the ringleader of the disturbance, Hogan proceeded to deliver a lecture to him after the following fashion:

"You have no right to interfere with these ladies. They are doing simply what they believe to be right; and, whether right or wrong, no decent man will insult them. It might be a good deal better for you if you had lived up to the principles of temperance yourself. Perhaps your wife, then, wouldn't be in want of bread to eat, nor your little ones without shoes or stockings. If you had spent the money which you have wasted for liquor in a better cause, you would be a good deal happier to-day. I am a temperance man myself, although I don't believe in the total abstinence principles of these ladies. At the same time, I am going to see to it that they are not annoyed nor insulted. No man worthy of the name will do that to any woman. Remember that you have had a mother, and perhaps a wife and sisters. Treat these women with courtesy and kindness. They are engaged in a great work. Now, gentlemen, we will all have a drink!"

This speech, as may be readily conceived, had its effect upon the crowd; and where Ben Hogan became the champion of the crusaders, none of the Brookvillers thought it wise to molest them.

After leaving Brookville, Ben went to Pittsburg again, where, falling in with a young man whom we will designate as George, he made his way into Indiana county. There he entered upon the counterfeit money game, on a somewhat different plan from that adopted in New York. I will attempt to describe the method used.

Ben would call upon a leading farmer, whose love of lucre he believed to be stronger than his conscience. He would go provided with two or three hundred dollars in crisp, new bank notes. Falling into conversation with the intended victim, he would tell him, in a delicate and round-about manner, that he had a project in mind, by which his friend might make a fortune in no time. Drawing out some of the genuine bills, he would say:

"Just look at these. You wouldn't think they were counterfeit, now, would you?"

"Counterfeit!" the farmer would exclaim, in amazement, at the same time taking the bills and examining them critically. "Well, I swan! If them is counterfeit bills, I'd like to have about a million of them, that's all!"

"Yes, they're counterfeit!" Ben would rejoin, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "The best imitations ever made. Bankers themselves can't detect them!"

"Well, how much do you charge for this money?" the farmer would inquire.

"We sell it at the rate of four dollars for one--that is, where the amount taken is big enough to make it an object. You see I am the agent, and I carry this with me simply as a specimen. When we get enough orders in any place, we ship it on in large quantities. But it doesn't pay us to handle small amounts."

"Couldn't you let me have, say a hundred dollars' worth?" the farmer would ask.

"No," Ben would answer, "that isn't enough. But I'll tell you what I'll do. You take me round and introduce me to some of your neighbors--men who can be trusted, you know--and then you can make up a purse together, and buy enough to make it an object for us to ship it."

This proposition would almost always meet with a ready acceptance, and so, in company with his first victim, Ben would start out in search of a second. In this way half a dozen or more farmers would be visited, and on the strength of the introduction, it was comparatively easy to broach the subject. Having secured enough to make up a purse of perhaps five hundred dollars, Ben would take the farmers' money and inform them that one of their number could drive in to the village with him, while he obtained the "queer." It is almost needless to explain that Ben would give the farmer the slip, and that not a dollar of the counterfeit notes ever found its way into the would-be speculators' pockets. Not any of them would dare to make any noise over the swindle, because if he did, the whole matter would of course come to light, and that would put him in a good deal worse boat than it would Ben.

In all Hogan's operations of this nature, he never handled a dollar of counterfeit money; but he found that there were plenty of people in the world who would have been glad to handle it, if they could have done so on the quiet.