Mr. Bunker bought a picture book for Laddie, from the train boy who came through the car every half hour or so, and the little riddle-chap curled up in his seat to look at this.

Russ, with some bits of string, some little sticks he had in his pocket and some paper, was making “something,” though just what it was not even he seemed to know.  Violet got in the seat with Laddie to look at his picture book.  At the same time she may have been thinking up more questions to ask, for all I know.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunker sat together now, near Grandpa Ford, and they talked together in low voices.  Russ was too busy with his string and sticks to listen, though, if he had, he might have heard something more about the queer secret.

As for Rose, who shared part of the secret with him, she was taking Margy and Mun Bun to get a drink.

“Ladies first,” said Rose to her little brother, when he would have reached for the cup she filled.  “Ladies first, Mun Bun.  Let Margy have a drink before you.”

“Does her doll have to drink, too?” asked Mun Bun.  “Is she a lady?”

“She just makes believe drink,” said Margy.  “I’ll give you the cup as soon as I take some, Munny Bunny.”  Sometimes Margy called her little brother that for fun.

Margy was very thirsty, and wanted two cups of water.  But then the cup was not a very large one.  Next Mun Bun had to have some, and he tried to drink three cupfuls.  But the last one was a little too much for him, and he spilled part of it on himself.

“But I don’t care,” he said.  “It’s only like when it rains, or when the water splashes on you when you go in bathing.  Only this water isn’t salt, like that down in the ocean at Cousin Tom’s,” he added.

“It’s a good thing it isn’t salt, or you couldn’t drink it,” said Rose, as she wiped the water drops off Mun Bun with her handkerchief.  “Now come on back to your seats,” she went on.  “I guess I’d better take you alone first, Margy.  Then I’ll come back for you, Mun Bun.  The train is so jiggily I can’t lead you both.”

The cars were indeed swaying, for the train was going faster now, and around curves, which always makes it hard to walk along inside a railway coach.

“Stay here, by the water tank, Mun Bun,” said Rose.  “I’ll take Margy to her seat, and then come back for you.”

“All right,” agreed the little boy.  “I’ll wait for you.”

Now at this end of the car the train boy had left his basket, in which were a number of toys, that he walked up and down the aisles with, selling.  He had left the basket there, in a vacant seat, while he went back into the baggage-car to get a magazine for which a lady had asked him.

Mun Bun saw the basket of toys.  There were picture books, little dolls, prettily colored boxes, jumping-jacks—­things that fathers and mothers might like to buy to amuse their children with on a long railway journey.