"Well, little ones, what can I do for you?" asked one of the tall men in the store, as Flossie and Freddie strolled in. "Are you with your parents?"
"No, sir, we"re all alone," spoke up Freddie. "We were lost on an express train, but we"re waiting for my father and mother and Bert and Nan. But a monkey chewed up Flossie"s hat and I want a new one for her. You sell hats, don"t you?"
CHAPTER X
LOST UNDERGROUND
Flossie and Freddie looked up at the tall man, who smiled kindly down at them. He seemed to be laughing at something, though whether it was Flossie"s flaxen hair, now rather tangled because the monkey had pulled off her hat, or because Freddie looked so funny asking his question, the children could not tell.
"So you want a hat for the little girl?" asked the floorwalker, as the man was called. He walked up and down in the store to see that the clerks waited properly on the customers, and he told strangers where to go.
"Flossie wants a hat," went on Freddie. "The monkey ate the cherries off hers."
"No; he didn"t really _eat_ them," Flossie explained, anxious to have everything just right. "He _tried_ to chew "em, but he didn"t like "em.
Anyhow, my hat"s gone!"
"What kind of a hat did you want?" asked the store man, not quite sure how to treat the children.
"One with feathers on," suggested Freddie.
"No, I want one with flowers on!" insisted Flossie.
"How much did you want to pay?" asked the man, shaking his head in a puzzled way.
"My father will pay," replied Freddie, "You just send the bill to him--Mr.
Richard Bobbsey, of Lakeport. He has a lumber mill and----"
"What seems to be the trouble?" broke in a new voice, and the two children, as well as the floorwalker, turned to see standing near them a stout man, with gray hair, who was smiling kindly at them.
"Oh, Mr. Whipple!" exclaimed the tall man, glad to have some one else to help him. "I don"t know what to do about these children. They want a hat for the little girl, and----"
"It"s because a monkey ate Flossie"s hat!" broke in Freddie. "We"re lost.
We were on an express train, but we got off and we heard music and please charge it to our father--charge the hat, I mean, not the music, for we didn"t pay anything for that. Did we Flossie?"
"No; but I"m not going to have a hat with feathers on. I want one with flowers on, and I wish mamma was here--or Nan--to help pick it out."
"I"ll help you," offered Freddie kindly.
"I guess you had better come with me," said the stout man, who, as the children learned afterward was Mr. Daniel Whipple, owner of the big store into which Flossie and Freddie had wandered. "I"ll take you up to my office," Mr. Whipple went on, "and you can tell me about yourselves. I"ll try to find your folks for you."
"And can I get a hat?" asked Flossie.
"Yes, I think so," the store owner answered. "Send one of the clerks from the children"s hat department to my office with some hats that will do for this little girl," he went on, and the floorwalker said he would.
"We"ll be all right now, Flossie," said Freddie, as they followed their new friend. In a little while Flossie was fitted with just the hat she wanted, and Mr. Whipple was listening to the story told in turn by the two children.
"Your father is probably on his way up to get you now," said Mr. Whipple.
"He"ll expect to find you in the elevated station, but you will not be there. I"ll send one of my clerks over to tell the agent you are here, and to send your father over when he comes. But I think I"ll keep you two tots here, because----"
"We might get lost again--we get lost lots of times," said Freddie with a smile. "It"s nice here. I like it!" and, very much at home, he looked around the office of the store owner. It was almost closing time, and Mr.
Whipple was wondering whether in case the children"s father did not come it would not be better to take them to his own home, when the clerk came back from the elevated station with Mr. Bobbsey himself.
"Oh, Daddy!" cried Flossie and Freddie.
"Well, you two certainly gave me a fine chase!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey, with a smile, hugging his "little fat fireman" and his "fat fairy," one after the other. "Where in the world have you been?"
"Oh, we heard a hand organ and we went to look at the monkey and it chewed Flossie"s hat and we"re here!" gasped Freddie, all in one breath.
"And I got a new hat, and you"ll please pay for it, Daddy," added Flossie.
"And did you bring my bugs--the ones that go around and around and around?" she asked.
"Yes, Flossie, I have them. But what"s all this about a hat?"
"I bought her a new one," explained Freddie, "but I didn"t have any money to pay for it, so we charged it."
"The little girl seemed to need one, Mr. Bobbsey," said the store owner.
"Oh, that will be all right, I"m glad to pay for it, Mr.--er----"
"Whipple is my name," said the store man. "Daniel Whipple."
"Whipple!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey, and a thoughtful look came over his face. "Daniel Whipple," and he seemed to be trying to think of something he had heard a long while before.
"Yes; you may have seen it in my advertis.e.m.e.nts. I advertise in the papers every day."
"Ah, yes, I presume so," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Thank you very much, Mr.
Whipple, for looking after the children for me. I reached the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street elevated station a little while ago, and the ticket agent there was very much excited because the children had slipped out while he was in his office.
"We were just trying to think where they could have gone, when your clerk came up to say they were here. Now I"ll take them to their mother, who is quite anxious about them."
"I can well believe she is," said Mr. Whipple. "Come and see me again," he invited Flossie and Freddie, who, after their father had paid for the new hat, went away with him.
A little later they were safe in the hotel where the Bobbsey family was to live while in New York. Mrs. Bobbsey, Bert and Nan were already there, and quite glad to see the two runaways, you may be sure.
"What a lot of adventures you must have had!" cried Nan, when Flossie and Freddie had told her a few of the things that had happened.
"We did!" laughed Freddie. "You ought to have seen that monkey"s face when he bit on those make-believe cherries on Flossie"s hat!" and Freddie laughed loudly.
"Anyhow I got a new hat!"
"That Mr. Whipple was a fine man," said Freddie.
"Indeed he must be," agreed Mrs. Bobbsey, and then, seeing a strange look on her husband"s face, she asked: