“Nope!  That isn’t it,” went on the small boy.  “It’s awful hard, and you’d never guess it, so I’ll tell you.  Mun Bun isn’t Mun Bun when he’s Tommie Wilson.  Isn’t that a good riddle?” he asked.  “Mun Bun isn’t Mun Bun when he’s Tommie Wilson.”

“Yes, that is pretty good,” said Mr. Bunker.  “But now we had better hurry, or we may be late for the Atlantic Highlands boat.  Are you all through?”

They were; all but Mun Bun, who saw a little pool of maple syrup on his plate, and wanted to get that up with a spoon before he left the table.  Then once more the six little Bunkers were on their way.

The Atlantic Highlands boat left from a pier near one of the New Jersey Central Railroad ferry slips on West street in New York City, and it was quite a long walk from the shore end of the pier to the end that was out in the Hudson River.  It was at the river end that the boat stopped, coming down from a pier farther up the stream.

“Now are we all here?” asked Mother Bunker, as she and her husband started down West street.  “I don’t want Mun Bun to change into some one else after we get started on the boat, for then it will be too late to change him back.  Are we all here?”

They were, it seemed, and down West street they hurried.  The way was lined with out-door stands, where it seemed that nearly everything from bananas and oranges to pocketbooks and shoes, were sold.  West street is along the river front, where many boats land, and there are sailors, and other persons, who have no time to go shopping for things up town, or farther inland in the city of New York.  So the stands on West street are very useful.  You can buy things to eat, as well as things to wear, without going into a store.  A big shed over the top keeps off the rain.

As the Bunker family hastened on, Margy, who had been walking with Rose, let go of her sister’s hand and cried: 

“Oh, look at the little kittie!  I want to rub the little kittie!”

A small cat had crawled out from under one stand and was walking along the street.  Margy saw it, and, being very fond of animals, she wanted to pet it.

But the cat, young as it was, seemed to be afraid.  As Margy ran from Rose’s side and trotted after the furry animal, it gave a sudden scamper under another stand.

But Margy had chased kittens before, and she knew that once they got under something they generally stayed near the front edge, hoping they would not be seen.  By stooping down, and reaching, she had often pulled her own kitten out from under her mother’s dresser.

“I can get you!  I can get you!” laughed the little girl.

Paying no attention to her clean, white stockings, which her mother had put on her only that morning, Margy knelt down on the sidewalk, and stretched her arms under the fruit stand, beneath which the half-frightened kitten had crawled.

If the little cat had known that Margy only wanted to stroke it softly and pet it I am sure it would not have run away.  But that is what it did, and that is what caused all the trouble.  For there was trouble.  I’ll tell you about it.