"Yes, I suppose so," said the old man.
"And we found a ragged man," went on Bunny, "and I had to lead him up stairs—ten flights—'cause Henry maybe wouldn't let him ride in the elevator."
"That was too bad," said the old animal store-keeper. "But where do you children live? Is your home near here, and do your folks know you are trying to buy a monkey and a parrot?"
Then, for the first time since they had looked in the window of the animal store, Bunny and Sue thought of Mother Brown and Aunt Lu. They remembered they had started for the seashore.
"Oh, our mother and aunt are with us," said Bunny. "We had our dinner, and we're going to Coney Island. I guess we'd better go, too, Sue. Maybe they're waiting for us."
Bunny and Sue started out of the animal store, but, just then, one monkey pulled another monkey's tail, and the second one made such a chattering noise that the children turned around to see what it was. Then the monkey whose tail was pulled, reached out his paw, through the wires of his cage, and caught hold of the tail of a green parrot. Perhaps he thought the parrot was pulling his tail.
"Stop it! Stop it!" screamed the parrot. "Polly wants a cracker! Oh, what a hot day! Have some ice-cream! Stop it! Stop it! Pop goes the weasel!"
Bunny and Sue laughed, though they felt sorry that the monkey's and parrot's tails were being pulled. The animal-store man hurried over to the cages to stop the trouble, and Bunny and Sue stayed to watch.
So it happened, when Mother Brown and Aunt Lu turned around, to find the missing children, Bunny and Sue were not in sight, being inside the store. So, of course, their mother and their aunt did not see them.
"Oh, where could they have gone?" cried Mother Brown.