“Neither did I,” agreed Freddie.  “If that one isn’t like our Snoop, it’s a nice cat, anyhow.”

The cat, which seemed to be a stray one, was walking toward the car, its tail held high in the air “like a fishing pole.”

Flossie and Freddie were in the rear seat, as I have said, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to them.  Their father and mother were busy talking to the man who had gotten down to “stretch his legs,” and Nan and Bert, with Billy and Nell, were busy talking.

“Let’s get down,” proposed Flossie.

“All right,” agreed Freddie.

In another moment the two smaller Bobbsey twins had left their seat, climbed down the rear steps of the sight-seeing automobile, and were running toward the stray cat, which seemed to wait for them to come and pet it.

CHAPTER XIV

STRAY CHILDREN

“Nice pussy!  Come and let me rub you!” said Freddie softly, as he held out his hand toward the stray cat.

“Yes, come here, Snoop!” added Flossie, as she walked along with her brother.

“’Tisn’t Snoop, and you mustn’t call him that name,” ordered Freddie.

“Well, he looks like Snoop,” declared Flossie.

“But if that isn’t his name he won’t like to be called by it, no more than if I called you Susie when your name’s Flossie,” went on the little boy.

“Do you s’pose cats know their names?” asked Flossie.

“Course they do!” exclaimed her brother.  “Don’t our Snoop know his name when I call him, same as our dog Snap does?”

“Oh, well, but our cat is a very, very, smart cat!”

“Maybe this one is, too,” Freddie said.  “Anyhow, we’ll just call him ‘Puss’ or ‘Kittie,’ and he’ll like that, ’cause that’s a name for any cat.”

“That’s so,” agreed Flossie.

So calling to the stray cat in their soft, little voices, and holding out their hands to pet the animal, Flossie and Freddie walked farther away from the sight-seeing car, and soon they were petting the cat that, indeed, did look a bit like Snoop.

They stroked the soft back of the cat, rubbed its ears, and the animal rubbed up against their legs and purred.  Then, suddenly, the cat heard a dog barking somewhere, and ran down toward the side entrance of a large, handsome house.

“Oh, come on!” cried Freddie to his sister, as he saw the cat running away.  “Maybe there’s some little cats back here, and we could get one to take home with us!  Come on, Flossie!”

Flossie was willing enough to go, and in a moment they were in the rear yard of one of the big houses, and out of sight from the street where the auto stood, while the man was putting water in the radiator.

The cat, once over its fright about the barking dog, seemed quieter now, and let the two little Bobbsey twins pet it again.  Freddie saw a little box-like house in one corner of the yard and cried: