While Mr. and Mrs. Martin were considering what to do, Bob, the boy who had come for the pigeons, put his head in through the doorway and called out:
"I got 'em all, thank you! I'm going now. I hope you have good luck with Uncle Toby's pets!"
"Goodness knows we'll need it," said Mrs. Martin, and then she had to laugh. The whole affair seemed to her to be so very funny. Neither she nor her husband had imagined that Uncle Toby's "collection" could be anything like this—dogs, a parrot, a monkey, a Persian cat and a little alligator, not forgetting the white rats and mice.
"Well, we'd better stay here for the night," finally decided Daddy Martin. "It is warm, and Uncle Toby had quite a number of beds. The house is in good order. I'll turn on the water, and you and the children might go to the store and get things for supper," he added. "It will soon be night."
"Oh, what fun! We're going to stay here!" cried Janet, dancing around the Persian cat, who was trying to rub against her legs.
"And I'll teach Tip and Top some new tricks, so we can have a circus when we get home," remarked Ted.
"There's circus enough here," his father said, with a smile. "But trot along, Curlytops, if you are going to get something for us to eat. The animals have been fed and now it is time for us. I'm getting hungry."
"Me hundry, too!" declared Trouble.
"We mustn't let that happen!" laughed his mother. "We'll go to the store. Come along, Curlytops!"
As the children walked down the street with their mother to look for the nearest delicatessen store, they saw the boy Bob carefully wheeling his basket of pigeons toward his own home. He had gotten the birds out of Uncle Toby's barn.