willing to take all the blame. "We wanted a
ride and we just crawled in and hid. I'm awful sorry."

"And I'm sorry I sneezed," said Flossie. "If I hadn't maybe we'd have had
a longer ride."

"No, we wouldn't," declared Freddie, shaking his head. "We got to the
station house, anyhow, and that's where the automobile lives when it isn't
workin'. Anyhow, we had fun!"

"Yes, we did," said Laddie; "and I liked it."

"But you mustn't go away again without telling me," said his aunt.

"I won't," he promised.

"Next time we'll take you with us," said Flossie. "You'll like it, only I
hope a fuzzy blanket doesn't make you sneeze."

So the Bobbsey twins, with their little friend, had a ride away and a ride
back again, and when Mrs. Bobbsey came home that afternoon from the
Natural History Museum with Bert and Nan, and heard what had happened, she
was so surprised she did not know what to say.

Of course she made Flossie and Freddie promise never to do it again, and
of course they said they never would.

"I never saw such little tykes as Flossie and Freddie have gotten to be
lately," said Mrs. Bobbsey to Nan that night.

"This being in a big city seems just to suit them, though," returned Nan.

"Yes. But I wish your father would come back. I feel rather lost without
him in this big hotel."

"I'm here," said Bert, with a smile.

"Yes, you'll have to be my little man, now. And do, please, keep watch of
Flossie and Freddie while your father is away. There's no telling what
they'll do next."

And really there was not. For instance, who would have supposed that a
goat--

But there, I'd better start at the beginning of this part of my story.

It was a few days after the ride in the automobile patrol that Mrs.
Bobbsey received word that a friend whom she had known when they were both
small children was living in New York. This lady asked Mrs. Bobbsey to
call and see her.

* * * * *

"We do not live in a nice part of New York," wrote the lady--who was a
Mrs. Robinson--in her letter, "for we can't pay much rent. But our
apartment house is not hard to reach from your hotel, and I would very
much like to see you. Come and bring the children. They can watch the
other children playing in the streets. I know the streets are not a very
nice place to play in, but that's all we have in New York."

* * * * *

So Mrs. Bobbsey decided to call on her old friend, whom