On reaching the city, he once more renewed his efforts to bring about a match with Tom Allen. Ignorant of the fact that Looney was hand-in-glove with Allen, he sought the services of the former to aid him in consummating the match. In company with a newspaper man, Looney visited Allen with the professed purpose of negotiating matters. So long as Allen did not suspect that his second visitor was a reporter, he talked with a good deal of freedom. Among other things he said that if the fight with M'Cool for which he was then in training, should go against him, he would not care to enter into another contest. It would be difficult, he hinted, for him then to obtain backers.
Of course this conversation, falling upon a reporter's ears, gained more or less publicity, and Allen was particularly anxious to have the matter hushed up.
A few days later, Looney succeeded in arranging the match, which was for one thousand dollars a side, half of the money being put up at once in the hands of Eagan. Ben did not know the fact at the time, but this Eagan was a particular friend of Looney and Allen, and he showed his friendship, as we shall see, in a peculiar and characteristic manner.
[Illustration: _FIGHT WITH TOM ALLEN--FIRST KNOCK-DOWN FOR HOGAN._]
We come now to an incident in the career of our hero which gained wide publicity at the time of its occurrence, and which is still remembered among all sporting men.
Numerous misrepresentations have been made with regard to the Hogan-Allen fight, and it will be my object to correct these, as well as to give a plain and simple statement of the facts, leaving the reader to form his own opinion of the relative merits of the case.
As soon as the arrangements described in the preceding chapter had been perfected, Ben at once went into training for the forthcoming fight. He took up his headquarters at Wash Home, and there devoted himself diligently to the work in hand.
Under the assumed name of Benedict, he joined the gymnasium in St. Louis, and while professing to receive instructions, he really became the teacher of those who patronized the place. Nobody suspected that it was the notorious Ben Hogan with whom they practiced daily in the gymnasium.