"If your gold-piece that you gave up as lost was found, so Pixy may be. Do not cry any more, my darling, or you will be sick. Perhaps your dog may be on his way back to the Odenwald."
"If we had walked all the way he might track us, but we came in the cars from Umstadt."
"In spite of that disadvantage he may find his way home, as he did the time your neighbor gave him away."
"Where will we go to-morrow?" asked Paul with the kind intent of taking
Fritz's thoughts from his trouble.
"In search of Pixy."
"No," responded Mrs. Steiner, "that will be of no use. You might walk the streets from morning until late at night every day, and it would be of no advantage to you or the dog. Let us go this afternoon to the zoological gardens and see the many animals from foreign countries. We will have some dinner and then go, that we may have a long afternoon at the gardens."
This was a happy thought. Nothing could have taken the boy's mind from his loss of the dog so well as did the many varied interests which the gardens offered.
Near the entrance was a large, fine building used by visitors as a resting-place, and for refreshments. Mrs. Steiner did not pass it by, but the four went in and she bought a supply of cake as a supplement to their light dinner. Then they went to see the splendid crested pea-fowls that were spreading their brilliantly tinted fans on the green lawn. As they passed a company of gay-plumaged parrots they were crying, "Dora! Dora!" and Mrs. Steiner told the boys of a lady who owned the large green parrot and was so weary of hearing it scream, "Dora! Dora!" from morning until night, that she gave it to the garden; and now all the parrots screamed "Dora."
"Ask it what its name is," she said to Fritz.
"What is your name?" he asked, going close to it.