After a while Flossie came running back to her mother in great excitement.
“Oh, Mother! Oh, Mother!” gasped the little girl. “He’s gone!”
“Who’s gone?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, dropping her book as she quickly stood up.
“Freddie’s gone! We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and he went down a big pipe, and now I can’t see him! He’s gone!”
[CHAPTER VII—THE SHARK]
Mrs. Bobbsey hardly knew what to do for a moment. She just stood and looked at Flossie as if she had not understood what the little girl had said. Then Freddie’s mother spoke.
“You say he went down a big pipe?” she asked.
“Yes, Mother,” answered Flossie. “We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and it was my turn to blind. I hollered ‘ready or not I’m coming!’ and when I opened my eyes to go to find Freddie, I saw him going down a big, round pipe.”
“What sort of pipe?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, thinking her little boy might have crawled in some place on deck to hide, and that to Flossie it looked like a pipe.
“It was a pipe sticking up like a smokestack,” Flossie went on, “and it was painted red inside.”