“I know what I’m going to have!” exclaimed Freddie.

“So do I!” cried Flossie.

“Chocolate soda!”

“Yes!  And I want plenty of cream on top!”

“Suppose they haven’t got any chocolate soda?” remarked Mr. Bobbsey, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh, I know they’ve got chocolate soda,” remonstrated his little son.  “They always have chocolate soda at soda fountains!  Don’t they, Flossie?”

“Of course they do!  I don’t think it would be a real soda fountain if they didn’t have chocolate soda,” replied the little girl.

“I think I’m going to have an orange phosphate,” said Bert.

“And that is just what I am going to have too,” added Nan.

“Phosphate!” cried Freddie in wonder.  “I wouldn’t drink any phosphate!  That’s what they make matches of.”

“Oh, just hear that!” cried Bert, laughing.  “Freddie thinks they make matches of phosphate.”

“They do, too!” answered the little boy.

“You are thinking of phosphorus, Freddie,” explained Mr. Bobbsey.  “That is different, and it is poisonous.”  Then the drinks were ordered and quickly served.

“And now I want to go to see the big fish!” said Freddie, sipping the last drops of his sweet drink.  “Are there any animals in the ’quarium, Daddy?”

“Well, there aren’t any lions or tigers,” answered Mr. Bobbsey.  “We’ll go to see them later in Bronx Park.  But, of course, fish are animals.  It won’t take me long to run into City Hall and see my friend.  Then we’ll go to the Aquarium.”

Left on the top steps of the City Hall building, this time the Bobbsey twins were found safely there when their father came out, and a little later they were on their way to Battery Park in a Broadway street car, that ran on the ground.

“We’ve ridden under the ground in the subway, over the ground in the elevated and now we’re riding on the ground,” said Nan.  “New York is a funny place!”

The Aquarium, as those of you know who have seen it, is in the round, brown stone building, on a point of land almost the very end of the island of Manhattan.  It is where the North and East rivers come together to form New York Bay, and, years ago, this building was where the immigrants, or people who came to the United States from other countries, were kept for a while until they could be sent out West, or down South, or wherever they wanted to go.

Now it is a place where many fish, big, little, ugly and beautiful, are shown in tanks of water so the boys and girls can see what strange things are in the ocean, rivers and lakes of this world.

Led by Mr. Bobbsey, Bert and Nan, with Flossie and Freddie trailing on behind, walked around the big building, looking in the glass tanks wherein swam the fish.

“What’s over there?” asked Freddie, pointing to where a crowd of people were standing near some pools in the middle of the floor.