"No, please don't!" begged Sue. "Take me up right away, and then you can come down again." She did not want Henry to wait there in the lower hall, with his elevator, and see Bunny going up the stairs with the ragged man. Sue wanted to get Henry safely out of the way.
"All right. I'll take you up," promised Henry, and, a second later, Sue was shooting upward in the elevator car.
"Come on now. We can get in without Henry's seeing us!" called Bunny to the ragged man. "It's a long walk, but Sue and I did it once."
"Say, I'm much obliged to you," said the tramp, for that's what he was. "But maybe I'd better not go in. They might arrest me."
"No they won't—not while I'm with you," Bunny said. "I'll tell a policeman you're going up to my Aunt Lu's. She's got lots to eat."
And so Bunny and the ragged man began the long climb up the stairs, while Sue rode in the elevator. She, of course, was the first to reach her aunt's rooms. Wopsie let Sue in.
"Oh, Aunt Lu!" cried Sue. "The hungry, ragged man's coming. He ate bread out of the ash can, and he hasn't had any breakfast, dinner or supper. Bunny's walking up stairs with him, so Henry won't see him, 'cause Henry, maybe, wouldn't let him ride in the elevator. But he's awful hungry, so please give him some of that meat!"
For a moment Aunt Lu stared at Sue, and so did Mrs. Brown.
"Bless my stars!" cried Aunt Lu, after a bit. "What does the child mean?"
"It's the ragged man," Sue explained. "Bunny's bringing him up the stairs," and then the little girl told her aunt and mother all about it.