the country, all right. Where do you live, and how
comes it your father let you out in the streets during a fire?"

"I live in the Parkview Hotel and my father didn't let me out. He's gone
to see the airships with Nan and Bert, and Laddie and I came out to see
the fire ourselves. Flossie stayed with her doll. Laddie went back to get
his aunt, 'cause she likes fires--I mean to see 'em--and I waited for him,
and--and----"

"Yes, I guess you don't know _what_ happened next," laughed the fireman.
"But as I want to telephone to headquarters about one of the engines that
is broken, I'll use the hotel 'phone, and, at the same time, take you back
where you belong. You're too little to get inside the ropes at a New York
fire."

"I'm going to be a fireman when I grow up," said Freddie, as the assistant
chief carried him into the corridor of the hotel.

"Well, that won't be for some time yet, and while you're waiting to grow
up don't go too near fires--they're dangerous. There you are, and I think
some one is looking for you," the fireman went on, as he saw a lady
rushing toward him when he set Freddie down.

"That's my mother," said Freddie.

"Oh, Freddie! Where have you been?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, for when she heard
of a fire she went in search of the two small twins, and could not find
them in Mrs. Whipple's rooms.

"I've been to the fire, and I was rescued," answered Freddie. "He did it,"
and he pointed to the white-coated fireman.

"Oh, he really wasn't in any real danger," the assistant chief said,
taking off his heavy helmet and bowing to Mrs. Bobbsey. "He was inside the
fire lines and I carried him here."

"Oh, I can't thank you enough!" cried Freddie's mother. "I never knew him
to do such a thing as that before. But he is simply wild about fires!"

"Yes, most boys are."

Then the fireman telephoned about the broken engine. Freddie told his
mother how he and Laddie came to go down to watch the "puffers" (part of
which story Flossie had already told Mrs. Bobbsey), and then along came
Laddie and his aunt. Mrs. Whipple was almost as much worried as was Mrs.
Bobbsey.

But everything came out all right; no one was hurt, and the fire, though
it badly burned the store in which it started, did not get near the hotel
or any other buildings.

But Freddie could not forget about his "rescue," as he called it, and when
his father, with Nan and Bert, came home that evening the story had all to
be told over again.

"B