One day Bunny and Sue went down to Mrs. Redden’s toy shop.  She bought a ticket from them, and Sue and Bunny each bought a penny’s worth of candy.  Coming out of the store, the children saw an automobile, belonging to Mr. Reinberg, who kept the dry-goods store.  He was just getting out of the automobile.

“Oh, Mr. Reinberg, please give us a ride!” begged Bunny.

“All right,” answered the store-keeper.  “Get in, and I’ll give you a ride; that is if your mother will let you go,” and he hurried into the post-office, which was near Mrs. Redden’s store.

“Get in, Sue,” said Bunny.  “We’ll have a fine ride.”

“Oh, but he said if mamma would let us.  We’ll have to ask her.”

“Well, we can ask him to ride us up to our house, and we can tell mamma, there, that we’re going,” said Bunny.  “Then it will be all right.”

So he and Sue got in the back part of the automobile, the door of which was open.  The children sat up on the seat, waiting for Mr. Reinberg to come out of the post-office, but he stayed there for some time.  Bunny and Sue thought it would be fun to sit down in the bottom of the car, and pretend they were in a boat.  Down they slipped, making a soft nest for themselves with the robes, or blankets, which they pulled from the seat.

Mr. Reinberg came out of the post-office.  He was in such a hurry that he never thought about Bunny and Sue’s having asked him for a ride.  He just shut the door of the car, took his place at the steering wheel and away he went.  He did not see the children sitting down in the bottom, partly covered with the robe.  For Bunny and Sue, just then, were pretending that it was night on their make-believe steamer, and they had “gone to bed.”

And there they were, being given an automobile ride, and Mr. Reinberg didn’t know a thing about it.  Wasn’t that funny?

CHAPTER XXIV

THE PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, sitting down in the back part of the automobile, with the blanket around them, got through pretending they were asleep on a make-believe ship, and “woke up.”

They had felt the car moving, but they thought nothing of this, for they imagined Mr. Reinberg was taking them to their house so they might ask their mother if they could go for a ride.

Bunny looked at Sue and said: 

“It takes this auto a good while to get to our house.”

“Yes,” Sue agreed, “but maybe he is going around the block to give us a longer ride.”

“Oh, maybe!  That would be fun!”

Bunny stood up and looked over the side door of the back part of the car.  He could not see his house, and, in fact, he could see no houses at all, for they were out on a country road.

“Why!  Why!” exclaimed Bunny to his sister.  “Look, Sue!  We’re lost again!”

“Lost?”

“Yes.  We’re away far off from our house.  I don’t know where we are; do you?”