Little Freddie, who sat beside his older brother, Bert, in Mr. Bobbsey's automobile, looked on with wonder in his childish eyes, as he saw the boy Mr. Mason had been shaking run down the road.
"What's the matter with him, Bert?" Freddie asked. "Didn't he like to be shook?"
"I should say not!" exclaimed Bert "And I wouldn't myself. I don't think that man did right to shake him so."
"It was too bad," added Freddie. "Say, Bert," he went on eagerly, "maybe we could catch up to him in the automobile, and we could take him to Meadow Brook with us. Nobody would shake him there."
"No, I guess they wouldn't," said Bert: slowly, thinking how kind his uncle and aunt were.
"Then let's go after him!" begged Freddie.
"No, we couldn't do that, Freddie," Bert said with a smile at his little brother. "The boy maybe wouldn't want to come with us, and besides, papa wouldn't let me run the auto, though I know which handles to turn, for I've watched him," Bert went on, with a firm belief that he could run the big car almost as well as could Mr. Bobbsey.
"Well, when papa comes back I'm going to ask him to go after that boy and bring him with us," declared Freddie. "I don't like to see boys shook."
"I don't, either," murmured Bert.
By this time Mr. Bobbsey had come up to where Mr. Mason was standing.