“How’d he get lost?” asked Freddie.  “Did he go to the store and couldn’t find his way back?”

“No, my child.  It was different from that.  I’ll tell you, perhaps, another time.  Go on with your play now.”

So Laddie, Freddie and Flossie went back to their “store,” and had lots of fun.  Then they played other games, using Freddie’s fire engine and Laddie’s train of cars, and even Flossie’s doll, who rode as a passenger.

“Well, what’ll we do next?” asked Freddie, when he and Laddie had taken turns squirting water from the fire engine in the bath room.

“Let’s play automobile,” said Laddie.  “I can get——­”

He stopped talking and seemed to be listening.

“What’s the matter?” asked Flossie, as Laddie hurried to a window that looked down into a side street.

“It’s a fire!” cried Laddie.  “I can hear the puffers!  Come on!  It’s right down this side street!”

Flossie and Freddie looked out of the window long enough to see a crowd of people in front of a store not far from the hotel, which was on a corner.  And in the street, which was a side one, as Laddie had said, were a number of fire engines.

“Let’s go down!” cried Freddie, all excited at what he saw.

“Oh, you mustn’t!” gasped Flossie.

“Course we can,” declared Laddie.  “My aunt always lets me look at a fire when it’s near here, and this is awful close.  Maybe this hotel will burn down.”

“Oh-o-o-o!” cried Flossie.  “Where’s my doll?” And she ran to get her pet.

“Come on, we’ll go!” said Freddie to Laddie.  “Girls don’t like fires, but we boys do.”

“Sure,” said Laddie.  “We’ll go, all right.  My aunt’s looking out the front window, and we can go out the side door and down the elevator,” he went on.  “I know all the elevator men, ’cause I’ve lived in this hotel a whole year.  My aunt won’t care ’cause she won’t see us, so she won’t be worried.  I don’t like her to worry.”

“Me either,” said Freddie.  So the two little boys, making sure Mrs. Whipple was still looking from the front windows of her apartment, to see what all the excitement was about, stole out of a door into the side hall and so reached the elevators.

“Down, George!” called Laddie to the colored elevator man.

“Down it am, Master Laddie,” was the good-natured answer.  “Where is yo’all gwine?”

“To see the fire,” was the answer.  “Don’t he talk funny?” asked Laddie of Freddie, as they left the elevator at the ground floor.

“He talks just like our colored cook, Dinah,” said Freddie.  “Did you ever see her?”

“Nope.”

“You ought to eat some of her pancakes,” went on Freddie.  “I’ll write, when I have a chance, and ask her to send you some.”

“Oh, hear the engines whistlin’!” cried Laddie.  “Hurry up, or maybe they’ll be gone before we get there.”

The fire was not near enough to the hotel to cause any danger, though many of the hotel guests were excited, and so no attention was paid to the small boys, Freddie and Laddie, as they hurried out to see all that was going on.  There was a crowd in the side street and more engines and hook and ladder trucks were dashing up to help put out the fire.