“Well, we’ll go now,” said Mr. Bobbsey, when he and his wife had spent some little lime admiring the decorations.  “Come, Freddie.  Where’s Flossie?” he asked, as he looked around and did not see his “little fat fairy."’

“She was here a little while ago,” replied Nan.  “I saw her with Freddie.”

“Where did Flossie go, Freddie-boy?” asked his mother.

“Up there!” and the little chap pointed to a broad flight of stone steps.

“Oh, she has wandered away,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

“I’ll run up and get her!” offered Mr. Bobbsey.  Up the stairs he hurried, but he came back in a little while with a queer look on his face.  “I can’t find her,” he said.

“Oh, Flossie’s lost!” cried Freddie.  “Oh, maybe she falled down stairs and got lost!”

Chapter XI

The President

Really it was nothing new for one of the Bobbsey twins to become lost—­ especially the younger set, Flossie and Freddie.  Some years before, when they were younger, it had often happened to Nan and Bert, but they were now old enough, and large enough, to look after themselves pretty well.  But Flossie or Freddie, and sometimes both of them, were often missing, especially when the family went to some new place where there were strange objects to see, as was now the case in the Congressional Library.

“Where do you suppose Flossie could have gone?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she glanced around the big rotunda in which they stood with some other visitors who had come to the city of Washington.

“I’ll have to ask some of the men who are in charge of this building,” replied Daddy Bobbsey.  “Are you sure you saw Flossie go up those stairs, Freddie?” he asked the little fireman.

“Well, she maybe went up, or she maybe went down,” answered the boy.  “I was lookin’ at the pishures on the wall, and Flossie was by me.  And then—­well, she wasn’t by me,” he added, as if that explained it all.  “But I saw a little girl go up the stairs and I thought maybe it was Flossie.”

“But why didn’t you tell mother, dear?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.  “If you had called to me when you saw Flossie going away I could have brought her back before she got lost.  Why didn’t you tell me that Flossie was going away?”

“’Cause,” answered Freddie.

“Because why?” his father wanted to know.

“’Cause I thought maybe Flossie wanted to slide down a banister of the stairs and maybe you wouldn’t let her, and I wanted to see if she could slide down and then I could slide down too!”

“Well, that’s a funny excuse!” exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey.  “I don’t believe Flossie would slide down any banister here.  But she has certainly wandered away, and we’ll have to find her.  You stay here with the children, so I’ll know where to find you,” Mr. Bobbsey said to his wife.  “I’ll go to look for Flossie.”

“I want to come!” exclaimed Nan.