Edna considered for awhile before she answered: "I'd send a telegram to papa to come and get us."
"It would be better to telephone," returned Dorothy. "We could use the long-distance 'phone and tell them all about it."
"So we could. I didn't think of that. We could stay right here and not leave the hotel at all, because that woman said it wouldn't do for us to go alone in the streets of New York."
But such an emergency did not arise, though as the afternoon wore on, the little girls began to get somewhat anxious. They read several of the fairy tales; they worked over their puzzles; they watched from the windows, and finally decided to put on their hats and pack up such of their belongings as they had taken from their satchels so they might be all ready. The new book and other gifts were stowed away, too, and this was hardly done before there came a quick knock at the door, and it was opened to Mr. Ramsey himself.
[35] "You're all ready?" he cried. "Good! Come right along as fast as you can."
A boy had already snatched up their hand-bags and was hurrying off with them. Mr. Ramsey rushed them along the hall and into the elevator, then they were hurried into a taxi-cab which stood waiting and off they went.
As soon as they had started, Mr. Ramsey looked at his watch. "It's a close shave, but I think we can make it," he said. Then he leaned over to speak to the driver. "Get us to the Fall River boat in time and you shall have an extra tip," he said.
So through the crowded streets, worming their way among lines of heavy teams, across car-tracks, and into queer-looking neighborhoods they were taken, arriving just in time to be taken on board the boat before she should move off.
It was all very exciting, but not unpleasant, for they felt quite safe with Mr. Ramsey. He smiled down at them as he led the way to the deck. "We did make it, didn't we?" he said. "If you children had not been all ready we should have been goners."
"Suppose we had been too late for the boat what would you have done?" asked Edna.