“Very well, but don’t go away,” cautioned Suzette.
“No, not unless it’s a very special, extra-extraordinary occasion,” answered Johnny.
Once they were upstairs they all ran to the window and looked down into the street below. There, in front of their house, was a great big automobile, all enclosed with glass windows, so the people in it wouldn’t get cold. And the man who sat in front had on a big fur coat, like a shaggy bear, so he wouldn’t get frosty.
“Oh, I know whose car that is!” cried Mary. “It belongs to Mrs. Robertson Dudleyshire, and she doesn’t sing or play, so we can’t hear her. It won’t be any fun at all. I wish we had something to do.”
“Wait, maybe she will do something funny, so we can hear it and laugh,” proposed Tommy, so they waited until Mrs. Robertson Dudleyshire was sitting in the parlor below them. They could hear her voice, a deep, rumbling one, and they could hear their mother answering, but, as Mary had said, there was “no fun,” and the Trippertrot children didn’t know what to do.
“Hark! What’s that?” suddenly exclaimed Tommy, as he heard a loud whistle out in the street. “Is that a policeman?”
“Oh! Maybe he’s chasing a dog, with a tin can tied to his tail?” suggested Johnny.
“Why, you silly boys!” cried Mary. “That’s the postman’s whistle. Perhaps he has some letters for us—maybe invitations to some party. Let’s look out of the window.”
So they ran from the middle of the room, where they had been sitting to listen to the rumble of Mrs. Robertson Dudleyshire’s voice, to the front windows, and stuck their little noses flat against the panes of glass, so they could look down to the street.
“Oh, dear! He isn’t coming to our house at all!” cried Mary, as the letter-man passed by, with his bag over his shoulder. “He’s gone next door.”