“Oh, there’s another fire!” he cried.  “Let’s go down to see it.”

“No, indeed!” cried Mrs. Whipple, with a laugh, coming into the room just then.  “No more fires for you boys.  You can look out the window, but that’s all.”

And so they had to be content with that.  The fire did not seem to be a large one, though it was somewhere near the hotel.

Down in the street were a number of engines and hose carts, and also two police automobile wagons, which had brought the officers who were to keep the crowd from coming so close as to get in the way of the fireman.

But there is not much amusement in looking out of a window at a fire which cannot be seen, and Flossie, Freddie and Laddie soon tired of this fun—­if fun it was.  Mrs. Whipple had left the room, to see a lady who called, when Freddie, taking a last look from the window to the street below, said: 

“I know how we could have some fun!”

“How?” asked Laddie.

“Get in one of the police wagons and have a ride,” went on the small Bobbsey boy.

“Oh, let’s do it!” cried Flossie, always ready for anything that Freddie proposed.  “How you going to do it?” she asked her brother.

“Why, we can go down in the elevator,” Freddie said.  “There’s nobody in the police wagon now, for all the policemans are at the fire, but we can’t see them or it.  And the driver on the front seat of the wagon won’t see us if we crawl in the back.”

“Oh, so he won’t!” cried Flossie. “’Member how we crawled in the empty ice-wagon once?” she asked Freddie.

“Yep.  I tore my pants that day.  But we had a nice ride.  We’ll have a nice ride now,” he went on.  “We can get in when they don’t see us.”

“But when the policemans comes back from the fire they’ll see us and maybe arrest us,” said Laddie in a whisper.

“They won’t if we hide under the seats,” returned Freddie.  “See, there are long side seats in the police automobile wagon, and we can lie down under ’em and make believe we’re in a boat.”

“Oh, if it’s a make-believe game, I’ll do it,” said Laddie.  “I guess my aunt won’t care, as long as it isn’t goin’ to a fire.”

“Then come on,” answered Freddie.

One of the police patrol wagons, or, to be more correct, automobiles, stood near the curb not far from the front entrance to the hotel.  It had brought several policemen to the scene of the fire, and was waiting to take them back.

As Freddie had said, the chauffeur on the front seat could not see what went on in the back of the wagon, for there was a high board against which he leaned.  And there were two long seats, one on each side of the auto patrol, under which three children could easily hide if the police were not too particular in looking inside their wagon as they rode back to the station house.

The three children hurried out into the hall and got in the elevator, which Laddie called to the floor by pressing the electric signal button.