The Comique, that night, was open as advertised. A bigger house was never seen within the walls of a theatre. It was literally packed from pit to dome. When the hour for opening the entertainment had arrived, the manager stepped upon the stage and announced that the gentleman in whose benefit the performance was to be given had been arrested, and was at that time locked up in jail. He further said that if there were any present who desired to withdraw, their money would be refunded to them. Nobody cared to accept this proposition, and so the show proceeded.
After the performance it was discovered that a barrel of rocks and bolts had been carried in to the galleries with the intention of giving Hogan and Sweeney an unpleasantly warm reception. So, after all, it was a lucky thing for our hero that he was arrested.
At half-past eleven, that same night, Ben and his companion were released. In spite of their imprisonment, the benefit yielded nine hundred dollars in cash. When Ben was arraigned the next morning, the detective explained that the arrest had really been made to save Ben’s life, inasmuch as he would certainly have been stoned and perhaps mobbed had he appeared on the stage of the Comique.
There was something singularly ridiculous in the idea of calling upon a man to answer to a charge of vagrancy, when he was stopping at a first-class hotel and had plenty of money, together with valuable jewelry locked up in the safe. However, it was in accord with the laws of St. Louis, and as has already been stated, it was a most lucky circumstance that the arrest had been made.
The witnesses against the alleged vagrants were Looney, Eagan and Allen. They failed to make out a case, and so Hogan and Sweeney were released. Before they left the city, an attempt was made to kill Ben, but this, like the other efforts of his enemies, proved unsuccessful.
CHAPTER XIX.
Ben in Chicago—Returns to Pittsburg—More of Allen—Builds Opera Houses in Petrolia and Millerstown—Figures Once More in Politics.
Immediately after the incidents related in the preceding chapters, Ben left St. Louis, and in company with Sweeney proceeded to Chicago.