The Girl Ben Met in Owney Geoghegan’s—A Confiding Sea Captain—Adventure in Little Falls—Pitching a Man Across the Erie Canal—Return to Syracuse.
Ben remained in New York at this time for a month or so, during which time he met with an adventure which it is worth while to relate.
Being well fixed in the way of money—he had made five hundred dollars in a few hours at faro—he went around one night to Owney Geoghegan’s notorious resort on the Bowery. It was considerably past midnight when he entered the place, and the women who were lounging about the room were in the main most pitiable representatives of their sex. Among the number, however, was one who, in spite of her dilapidated appearance, gave unmistakable evidence of having seen better days. With this girl Ben fell into conversation, learned that she had followed a life of shame but a short time, and was struck by her beauty and intelligence. Poor and forsaken, as she now was, Hogan’s sympathy went out to her, and the character of the man was illustrated in the way he treated her. Accustomed as he was to gilded vice and the association of the better class of the demi-monde, he could still make himself an equal with women of this sort. He accompanied his newly formed acquaintance to her home on Forsyth street, and there spent the remainder of the night, occupying, let it be said, a separate room. Most wretched quarters they were in which this young woman with her widowed mother lived. When Ben awoke the next morning, he proposed to the girl, Nellie, to stay to breakfast. She told him with some hesitancy that there was nothing in the house to eat.
“That makes no difference,” said Ben; “we can get plenty to eat and drink, too. Here, take this ten-dollar bill, go out and buy whatever you want. A porter-house steak wouldn’t go bad, and you might invest in a bottle of champagne, too.”
With many expressions of gratitude, the girl took the money, and while she was gone, Ben, adapting himself to the surroundings, assisted the mother in preparing for the breakfast. It was a royal feast, and perhaps the consciousness of having done a good deed gave our hero a keen appetite.
When Ben came to take his departure, the girl and her mother were profuse in their thanks.
“You may be a prize fighter,” said the latter, “but you have the kindest heart of any man I ever knew.”
“When I’m in want again,” said the girl, “I shall look you up to help me.”
A day or two afterward, Ben, while in company with some of his friends, ran across the girl in the street, and readily furnished her with the money she solicited. She told him then that she had three or four hundred dollars’ worth of rich dresses and jewelry in pawn, which she hoped some time to redeem.
Some two weeks after this adventure, Ben was passing down Broadway, with a friend, when he heard a voice call out