This reminded Betty of Bobby's plan to visit the roof of the office building, and Bob had the same thought.
"Couldn't you all come in to-morrow morning and let me take you up on the roof?" he asked them. "The view is really worth while, and I'm up there anyway half the morning looking after my employer's experiments. He is head of a dye house, and is always trying the effect of sunlight on new shades."
So it was decided that the girls should come in again in the morning. Then they drove away home, and Bob went on his errand. Luckily he had been told that he need not return to the office that afternoon after its completion, or he might have found himself involved in a maze of explanations and excuses for his lengthy absence.
CHAPTER XXI
THE ACCIDENT
"I'd like to live up here!" It was Esther who spoke so enthusiastically, as she stood, with Bob Henderson and the four girls, on the roof of the building proudly pointed out as the tallest in Washington.
A soft breeze was blowing, and it was a cloudless day so that the city was clearly spread before them.
"Wouldn't I like to go up in an airplane!" exclaimed Betty. "See, they're flying over the Navy Yard now. I'd give anything to know how it feels to fly."
"If you go much nearer that edge you'll know how it feels all right," Bob warned her. "Come down here and I'll show you our drying racks. Perhaps that will keep your mind off airplanes."