unker had finished writing the letters and had sealed and
addressed the envelopes she satisfied Vi's curiosity, as well as that of
the other children, by giving the letters and a dime to the colored
porter, who promised to mail them at the first station at which the
train stopped.

Then they all trooped into the dining car for dinner, where daddy had
already secured two tables for his party. They had a waiter all to
themselves, and the children thought that he was a very funny man. In
the first place, he was very black, and when he smiled (which was almost
all the time) he displayed so many and such very white teeth that Mun
Bun and Margy could scarcely eat their dinner properly, they looked so
often at the waiter.

He was a colored man who liked children too. He said he did, and he
laughed loudly when Vi asked him questions, although he couldn't answer
all her questions any better than other people could.

"Why is he called a waiter?" Vi wanted to know. "For he doesn't wait at
all. He is running back and forth to the kitchen at the end of the car
all the time."

"That's a riddle," declared her twin soberly. "'When is a waiter not a
waiter?'"

"You'll have to answer that one yourself, Laddie," said Daddy Bunker,
laughing.

"When he's a runner," Laddie said promptly. "Isn't that a good riddle?"

"And he juggles dishes almost as good as that juggler we saw at the
show," Russ declared.

"He must have almost as much skill as a juggler to serve his customers
in this car," said Mrs. Bunker, watching the man coming down the aisle
as the train sped around a sharp curve.

"Oh! Look there!" cried Rose, who was likewise facing the right way to
see the waiter's approach.

The smiling black man was coming with a soup toureen balanced on one
hand while he had other dishes on a tray balanced on his other hand. The
car swayed so that the waiter began to stagger as though he were on the
deck of a ship in a heavy sea.

"Oh! He's going!" sang out Russ.

The waiter jerked to one side, and almost dropped the soup toureen. Then
he pitched the other way and his tray hit against one of the diners at
another table.

"Look out what you're doing!" cried the man whom the tray had struck.

"Yes, sah! Yes, sah!" panted the waiter, and he tried to balance his
tray.

But there was the soup toureen slipping from his other hand. He had
either to drop the tray or the soup. Each needed the grasp of both his
hands to secure it, and the