CHAPTER XXVII
THE SIGNED CONTRACT
"If old Pharaoh could only see us now!" chortled Jim, as the teams linedup for their first game.
"He'd probably throw a fit," grinned Denton.
"Not a bit of it," said Joe. "He'd probably be up in the grandstand,eating peanuts and singing out once in a while to 'kill the umpire.'"
"And he'd do it too," laughed Jim. "I'll bet an umpire in those days wouldhave had a hard job to get life insurance. It would have been good dope toget a tip before the game as to just what team Pharaoh wanted to win."
"I think you men are awfully irreverent," reproved Mabel, who, with Clara,was seated in the first row in the stand right behind the players' benchand had overheard the conversation.
"Not at all," laughed Jim. "It's a big compliment to Pharaoh to suggestthat he would have been a baseball fan if he hadn't been born too soon. Itputs him on a level with the President of the United States."
The teams were playing on the cricket field used by the English residents,and not far off the Pyramids reared their stately heads toward the sky. Itwas a strange conjunction of the past and the present, and all were moreor less impressed by it.
"Well, I must confess that in my wildest dreams of seasons gone by, Inever supposed that I would be pitching here in Egypt in the shadow of thepyramids," remarked Joe.
"It certainly takes a fellow back to ancient days," put in Jim. "Justimagine playing before a crowd of those old Egyptians!"
"Well, they had fun in their day just as well as we have," said McRae."Just the same, they didn't know how good baseball is."
"They didn't even know anything about yelling to kill the umpire when awrong decision was given," remarked Joe, with a grin, and at this therewas a general laugh.
There was a big outpouring of Europeans and visiting Americans, and underthe inspiration of their interest and applause both teams playedbrilliantly. It was a hammer-and-tongs contest from start to finish, andresulted in the first tie of the trip, neither team being able to score,although the game went to eleven innings.
"Still two ahead," McRae said to Brennan, as they left the grounds afterthe game.
"We're gunning for you," retorted Brennan good-naturedly, "and we'll getyou yet. You've had all the breaks so far, but our turn has got to come."
"Tell that to the King of Denmark," laughed McRae. "We've got your number,old man."
The party "did" Egypt thoroughly, visiting Cairo, Thebes and Memphis,climbing the Pyramids, sailing on the Nile, viewing the temples of Karnakand Philae, the statue of Memnon, and countless other places of interestin this cradle of the world's civilization. And it was a tired but happycrowd that finally assembled at Alexandria to take ship for Naples, theirfirst stopping place on the continent of Europe.
Braxton was no longer with the party, having left it at Ceylon, and othershad dropped away here and there. But in the main the members were the sameas at the beginning. Their health had been excellent, and only a fewthings had occurred to mar the pleasure of the trip.
The discomfort that Joe had felt had largely worn away with the passing oftime. Every day was bringing him nearer the time when with the opening ofthe season he would actually appear on the diamond wearing a Giantuniform, and thus effectually dispose of the slander that had troubledhim.
There had just been time enough to receive some of the earliest papersfrom America that had been published after the receipt of his denial. Thatdenial had evidently produced a great effect, coupled as it was with theoffer to give a thousand dollars to charity if the new league couldproduce any contract signed by him. "Money talks," and the paper intimatedthat the All-Star League had the next move and that it would be "in bad"with the public if it failed to make its statements good.
"They'll have a hot time doing it," grinned Joe.
"I'm wondering how they'll dodge it," remarked Jim.
"By getting out a new lie to bolster up the old one probably," conjecturedJoe.
The latest papers from America had come on board just as the steamer leftAlexandria, and in the hurry of getting aboard and settling down in theirnew quarters it was after supper that night before Joe hurried to thesmoking room to have a look at them.
"Got a thousand dollars handy, Joe?" inquired Denton, as Joe came nearhim.
"Because, if you have, the All-Star League wants it," added Larry.
"What do you mean?" asked Joe, all the old discomfort and apprehensioncoming back to him.
"Read this," replied Larry, handing him a paper opened at the sportingpage.
Joe read:
"All-Star League Calls Matson's Bluff. Produces Signed Contract. Facsimile of Contract Shown Below."
And staring right out at him was the photographic reproduction of aregulation baseball contract and at the bottom was written the name:"Joseph Matson."
Joe stared at it as though he were in a dream. Here was the old blow athis reputation, this time with redoubled force. Here was what claimed tobe the actual contract. But it was not the body of the contract that heldhis attention. The thing that made him rage, that gave him a sense offurious helplessness, that put his brain in a whirl, was this:
_He knew that that was his signature!_
No matter how it came there, it was his. A man's name can seldom be soskilfully forged that it can deceive the man himself. It may get by thecashier of the bank, but when it is referred back to the man who issupposed to have written it, that man knows instinctively whether he everwrote it. Perhaps he cannot tell why he knows it, but he knows it just thesame.
So Joe _knew_ that it was his signature that was photographed on thatcontract. But he also knew another thing just as certainly.
_He had never signed that contract!_
Both things contradictory. Yet both things true.
Larry and Denton were watching him closely. Joe looked up and met theireyes. They were two of his oldest and warmest friends on the Giant teamand had always been ready to back him through thick and thin. Confidencestill was in their gaze, but with it was mixed bewilderment almost equalto Joe's own.
Before anything further could be said, McRae and Robbie joined the group.
"Well, Joe, there's the contract," said McRae.
"It seems to be a contract all right," replied Joe. "I haven't had time toread what it says, but that doesn't matter anyway. The only importantthing is that I never signed that contract."
"That seems to be a pretty good imitation of your signature at the bottomthere," chimed in Robbie.
"It's even better than that," said Joe, taking the bull by the horns. "Itisn't even an imitation. It's my own signature."
Both Robbie and McRae looked at him as if they thought he was crazy.
"I don't get you, Matson," said McRae, a little sternly. "And it seems tome it's hardly a time for joking. There's the contract. You say you didn'tsign it, and yet you admit that the name at the bottom is your ownsignature. How do you explain it?"
"I don't pretend to explain it," replied Joe. "There's crooked worksomewhere that I've got to ferret out. Somehow or other my name, writtenby me, has gotten on the bottom of that contract. But I never put itthere. Some rascal has, and when I find him, as I will, may Heaven havemercy on him, for I won't!"