“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.