"Then what happened?"
"Oh, I'm so dumb!" began Joy.
"Tell us something we don't know!" laughed Kit.
"Well, I didn't look at the name of the street. And that old Capitol! Girls, I don't care if I never see it again! It stands up there on that hill as if it were the most important thing in the world, and streets lead up to it from everywhere, like the spokes of a wheel. All the streets lead to the Capitol!"
"And you didn't know which street you came up?" asked Kit.
"That's it. So I walked down all those streets, up and down and up and down. Why I've seen that building from every angle. It was terrible!"
"Why didn't you just take a taxi to the hotel?" asked the practical
Shirley.
"Oh, I'm not so dumb. I thought of that!" exclaimed Joy with a toss of her head. "But the taxi man laughed at me. I didn't know the name of the hotel or the name of the street, and I'd already told him I didn't have any money."
"You poor little kid," soothed Bet.
"He finally went away and I saw him make a sign to another taxi driver as much as to say I was crazy. Then I got frightened for fear they'd speak to me and laugh some more, so I ran away."