What's yours?"

"Laddie Dickerson. Where do you live?"

"We live away up in Lakeport, but we're staying at the Parkview Hotel."

"Why--why, that's where _we_ live, my mother and my uncle and my aunt. My
father is dead. We live at the hotel, except in the Summer, when we go to
the seashore. What floor are you on?"

"The tenth. I know 'cause I holler it out when we come up in the
elevator."

"Why, _we_ live on the tenth floor, too," said Laddie Dickerson. "It's
funny I never saw you."

"And it's funny I never saw you," replied Freddie. "Say, come and play
with me, will you?"

"Sure I will! Well have lots of fun. I've got a train of cars."

"I've got a fire engine!" said Freddie, his eyes big with delight. "Oh,
what fun we'll have!"

"Hush, Freddie dear," said his mother, for the little boy was talking
rather loudly. "The curtain is going up again."

CHAPTER XIII

THE "RESCUE" OF FREDDIE

During the rest of the play the attention of Freddie and Flossie, who sat
near him, was divided between Laddie, the new boy, and the things
happening on the stage. Both were so jolly--the funny things the actors
did and the chance of having a new playmate--that the two smaller Bobbsey
twins did not know which was best.

"Don't you like this show?" asked Freddie of Laddie, when the curtain went
down again.

"Yes. It's great! But I'm glad you're comin' to play with me," Laddie
answered.

"So'm I," answered Freddie. "You're glad too, aren't you, Flossie?"

"Of course I am," said the little girl.

"Does _she_--_she_ play with you?" asked Laddie, nodding his head toward
Freddie's little sister, as if in surprise.

"Of course she does. We have lots of fun. Why?"

"But she's a _girl!_"

"Of _course_ she's a girl," agreed Freddie. "She couldn't be my sister if
she wasn't a _girl_. I've got another sister, too, but she's bigger. She's
sitting on the end of the row. She plays with Bert and Flossie plays with
me. We're two sets of twins. Don't you like girls?"

"Well, I don't know," said Laddie slowly. "I never played with 'em much.
I--I like your sister, though. She can play with us. Do you ever play
store?"

"Lots of times," said Freddie. "We take some dirt for sugar, some little
stones for eggs, some big stones for loaves of bread, clam shells and
pieces of tin for dishes--we have lots of fun like that. But we haven't
had any fun that way since we came to New York. I fell on a turtle's back
in the 'quarium, t