"Oh ho!" exclaimed a fat man, a few seats ahead of Bunny. "So that's what made the train stop; eh? I thought someone must have pulled the engineer's whistle cord to make him stop, but I didn't think it was a little boy like you."
"Oh, Bunny!" exclaimed his mother, when she saw what had happened. "You shouldn't have done that. You musn't stop the train that way."
"I—I didn't want to stop the train, Mother!" the little boy answered. "I just wanted to show Sue about the cord. I fell out of my seat, too," he added.
"Yes, nearly all of us did," said the fat man with a laugh. "Well if you didn't mean to do it Bunny, we'll forgive you I suppose," and he laughed in a jolly way.
Into the car came hurrying the conductor, with the gold bands on his cap, and the brakeman. They looked all around, and then straight at Bunny who still held his mother's parasol.
"Who pulled the whistle cord?" asked the conductor. Years ago there used to be a bell cord in the train, and a bell rang in the engineer's cab when the cord was pulled. But now an air whistle blows. "Who pulled the cord?" asked the conductor.
Now Bunny Brown was a brave little chap, even when he knew he had done wrong. So he spoke up and said:
"I—I pulled it, Mr. Conductor. I pulled the cord."
"You did eh?" and the conductor smiled a little now. Bunny looked so funny and so cute standing there, with the parasol, and Sue looked so pretty, standing near him, holding her doll upside down, that no one could help at least smiling. Some of the passengers were laughing.
"And so you stopped my train; did you?" the conductor asked.