It did not take the carpenter and the children long to search through the shop and make sure there was no dog there. As Mr. Foswick had said, there were several holes in the back wall of his shop, out of which a dog might have crawled.
"What can we do?" asked Sue, looking at her brother after the unsuccessful search.
"We've got to go home and tell mother," said Bunny. "Then we can maybe find the dog and the pocketbook somewhere else. It isn't here."
"No, I don't see anything of it," remarked Mr. Foswick, looking around his little shop. "You'd better go and tell your folks. They may be worried about you. And tell 'em I'm sorry for locking you in."
Bunny and Sue hurried home. They found Mrs. Brown looking up and down the street for them. The other children had gone away.
"Where have you been?" asked Mother Brown. "It is very late for little people to be out alone. And where is my pocketbook and the groceries I sent you for? Where is my pocketbook?" She looked at Bunny and then at his sister, noting their empty hands.
"A big dog ran off with your pocketbook, Mother," explained Bunny. "He jumped into the yard and picked it up off the bench when Sue was teeter-tautering with me. Then he ran into Mr. Foswick's shop, and we ran after him, and we got locked in, and I broke a window, and we couldn't find the dog nor your pocketbook."
"Nor the money, either," added Sue. "There was money in the pocketbook, wasn't there, Mother?"
Mrs. Brown did not answer that question at once.
"Do you mean to say a strange dog ran off with the pocketbook and everything in it?" she asked Bunny.