“It isn’t any fun!” exclaimed Bert.  “Can’t we go in and hear ’em talk and talk and talk, like Mr. Perkins said they did?”

“We’ll go in and hear the senators and congressmen debate, or talk, as you call it, some other time,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “We mustn’t stay too late now on account of having left mother and Freddie and Flossie at the hotel.  I think you’ve seen enough for the first evening.”

So, after another little trip about the corridors, Bert and Nan followed their father outside and down the flight of broad steps.

“Say, this would be a great place to slide down with a sled if there was any ice or snow!” exclaimed Bert.

“They wouldn’t let him, would they, Daddy?” asked Nan.

“Hardly,” answered her father.

“Well, I can have fun some other way,” Bert said.  “I wish I could find Miss Pompret’s dishes and get the hundred dollars.”

“So do I!” sighed Nan.

But their father shook his head and told them not to hope or think too much about such a slim chance as that.

Flossie and Freddie were in bed and asleep when Mr. Bobbsey and Bert and Nan reached the hotel again, and, after a little talk with their mother, telling her what they had seen, the two older Bobbsey twins “turned in,” as Bert called it, having used this expression when camping on Blueberry Island, and taking the voyage on the deep, blue sea.

Because they were rather tired from their trip, none of the Bobbseys arose very early the next morning.

“It’s a real treat to me to be able to lie in bed one morning as long as I like,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a happy sigh as Flossie crept in with her.  “And I don’t have to think whether or not Dinah will have breakfast on time.  I’m having as much fun out of this trip as the children are,” she told her husband.

“I am glad you are, my dear,” he said.  “I’ll be able to go around with you a little to-day, but after that, for about a week, I shall be quite busy with Mr. Martin.  But Mrs. Martin and Nell and Billy will go around with you ant the children.”

“When are we going to see Billy and Nell?” asked Bert, at the breakfast table.

“To-day,” answered his father.  “I telephoned Mr. Martin last night that we had arrived, and they expect us to lunch there to-day.  But first I thought I’d take the children into the Congressional Library building.  It is very wonderful and beautiful.”

And it certainly was, as the children saw a little later, when their father led them up the broad steps.  The library building was across a sort of park, or plaza, from the Capitol.

“We will just look around a little here, and then go on to Mr. Martin’s,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “It takes longer than an hour to see all the beautiful and wonderful pictures and statues here.”

Mrs. Bobbsey was very much interested in the library, but I can not say as much for Flossie and Freddie, though Nan and Bert liked it.  But the two smaller Bobbsey twins were anxious to get outdoors and “go somewhere.”