“I asked him to,” said Freddie, telling the truth like a little man.  “I asked him and Flossie to come.”

“Well, next time you’d better ask before you crawl into a police automobile,” said the captain, with a laugh.  “You can’t always tell where it is going.  However, no harm is done this time.  Come and see me again,” he added.

Then the captain called a taxicab and sent the children to the hotel in charge of one of his policemen, who did not wear a uniform.  This was done so no crowd would gather in front of the hotel to stare at Freddie, Flossie and Laddie, as would have happened if a policeman in uniform, with his bright brass buttons, had gone with them.

“Oh, Laddie! how could you do it and worry me so?” cried Mrs. Whipple, when her little nephew had come back to the hotel with the Bobbsey twins.

“I asked him,” said Freddie, willing to take all the blame.  “We wanted a ride and we just crawled in and hid.  I’m awful sorry.”

“And I’m sorry I sneezed,” said Flossie.  “If I hadn’t maybe we’d have had a longer ride.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” declared Freddie, shaking his head.  “We got to the station house, anyhow, and that’s where the automobile lives when it isn’t workin’.  Anyhow, we had fun!”

“Yes, we did,” said Laddie; “and I liked it.”

“But you mustn’t go away again without telling me,” said his aunt.

“I won’t,” he promised.

“Next time we’ll take you with us,” said Flossie.  “You’ll like it, only I hope a fuzzy blanket doesn’t make you sneeze.”

So the Bobbsey twins, with their little friend, had a ride away and a ride back again, and when Mrs. Bobbsey came home that afternoon from the Natural History Museum with Bert and Nan, and heard what had happened, she was so surprised she did not know what to say.

Of course she made Flossie and Freddie promise never to do it again, and of course they said they never would.

“I never saw such little tykes as Flossie and Freddie have gotten to be lately,” said Mrs. Bobbsey to Nan that night.

“This being in a big city seems just to suit them, though,” returned Nan.

“Yes.  But I wish your father would come back.  I feel rather lost without him in this big hotel.”

“I’m here,” said Bert, with a smile.

“Yes, you’ll have to be my little man, now.  And do, please, keep watch of Flossie and Freddie while your father is away.  There’s no telling what they’ll do next.”

And really there was not.  For instance, who would have supposed that a goat—­

But there, I’d better start at the beginning of this part of my story.

It was a few days after the ride in the automobile patrol that Mrs. Bobbsey received word that a friend whom she had known when they were both small children was living in New York.  This lady asked Mrs. Bobbsey to call and see her.

* * * * *