“Of course, I know it, Joe!” he exclaimed emphatically. “I don’t deny that for a moment the paper had me going. But in my heart I know it’s a lie. So just send your cable and then let’s forget it. Those fellows are just making a rope to hang themselves with. We’ll make it warm for them when we get back to the States.”
“You ought to sue the papers for libel,” growled Robbie.
“There won’t be any suing,” said Joe heatedly. “Just let me have five minutes alone with the fellow that started this and that’s all I’ll ask.”
He hurried down with Jim to the cable office 205 and a few minutes later this message buzzed its way across the seas:
“Report that I have signed with the All-Star League absolutely false. Will give a thousand dollars to charity if anyone can produce contract.
“Joseph Matson.”
“That ought to hold them for a while,” commented Jim.
“It ought,” said Joe gloomily. “But you know the old saying that ‘a lie will go round the world while truth is getting its boots on.’”
Still he felt better, and by the time he got back to the hotel and met the girls, he had so far regained his usual poise that he could tell them all about it with some measure of self-control.
“Why, Joe! how could they dare do such a thing as that?” exclaimed Mabel, her eyes flashing fire.