"Let's go down!" cried Freddie, all excited at what he saw.
"Oh, you mustn't!" gasped Flossie.
"Course we can," declared Laddie. "My aunt always lets me look at a fire when it's near here, and this is awful close. Maybe this hotel will burn down."
"Oh-o-o-o!" cried Flossie. "Where's my doll?" And she ran to get her pet.
"Come on, we'll go!" said Freddie to Laddie. "Girls don't like fires, but we boys do."
"Sure," said Laddie. "We'll go, all right. My aunt's looking out the front window, and we can go out the side door and down the elevator," he went on. "I know all the elevator men, 'cause I've lived in this hotel a whole year. My aunt won't care 'cause she won't see us, so she won't be worried. I don't like her to worry."
"Me either," said Freddie. So the two little boys, making sure Mrs. Whipple was still looking from the front windows of her apartment, to see what all the excitement was about, stole out of a door into the side hall and so reached the elevators.
"Down, George!" called Laddie to the colored elevator man.
"Down it am, Master Laddie," was the good-natured answer. "Where is yo'all gwine?"
"To see the fire," was the answer. "Don't he talk funny?" asked Laddie of Freddie, as they left the elevator at the ground floor.