“Are we all going?” asked Freddie.

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey.  “We are all going.”

Much excited over the joys before them, for in Lakeport there was only one theatre, and plays did not show there often, the Bobbsey twins made ready to go to the matinee.  Flossie and Nan wore new frocks, and Bert and Freddie had new suits, so they were quite dressed-up, they felt.

The play was a very amusing one, and the children laughed so hard that
Freddie at last rolled off his seat and had to be picked up by his father.

But this only made all the more fun, and the people around the Bobbsey family joined in the laughter when an usher helped Mr. Bobbsey place Freddie in his proper place again.

Then the curtain went down on the first act, and as the lights were turned up the children looked about them.  Freddie found himself seated next to a boy about his own age, who, with an elderly lady, had come in after the performance began.  This was why Freddie had not noticed his little neighbor before.

“Isn’t this a dandy show!” cried Freddie.

“The best I ever saw,” answered the boy.  “What’s your name?”

“Freddie Bobbsey.  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.