Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey tried not to laugh.
"But you shouldn't have slipped away while we were talking and come in here all alone," went on Mother Bobbsey. "Why did you do it?"
"I was hungry," said Freddie, and that seemed to be all there was to it.
"Our cookies were all in crumbs," explained Flossie. "They wasn't a one left in my basket. I was hungry, too."
"I presume that's as good an excuse as any," said Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh. "And so we'll all sit down and have lunch."
And while they were eating Flossie and Freddie told how they had slipped out, when their mother and father were busy talking to Mrs. Powendon, and while Bert and Nan were looking out of the window. They had been in dining cars on railroad trains before, and so they knew pretty nearly what to do.
But when they ordered dinner for themselves, or at least told the smiling, black waiter to bring them something to eat, the Pullman conductor, who had seen the children in the sleeping coach, suspected that all was not right, so he sent the waiter back to tell Mrs. Bobbsey about Flossie and Freddie.
"And you mustn't do it again," said Mrs. Bobbsey, when the story had been told.
"No'm, we won't!" promised Freddie.
"No, he won't do just this again," said Bert with a laugh to Nan. "But he'll do something else just as queer."