"Good-bye!" added Flossie, waving her hand.
Mrs. Bobbsey might have asked what it was Mike was not to forget, only she was in a hurry to get back to the hotel, and so did not question Freddie.
When they reached their rooms they found a letter from Mr. Bobbsey, saying he would have to stay in Lakeport a day longer than he expected. But he would soon be in New York again, he wrote.
Bert and Nan came home from the moving pictures, saying they had had a delightful time.
"So did we--in a goat wagon," cried Freddie.
"And Freddie and me are goin' to----" began Flossie, but Freddie quickly cried:
"Come on and play fire engine, Flossie!" so his little sister did not finish what she had started to say.
It was the next day, soon after breakfast, that one of the hotel messengers--a small colored boy--knocked on the door of the suite of apartments occupied by the Bobbsey family, and when Mrs. Bobbsey answered, the colored boy said:
"He am downstairs, Ma'am. He am in de lobby."
"De boy what wants to see yo' little boy, Ma'am."
"I don't know, Ma'am. He didn't gib no name."
"Oh, perhaps it is Laddie," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Bert, please go down and see, will you? If it's Laddie, who wants Freddie to play with him, I don't see why he didn't come here. But go and see."
"Oh, I know who it is," said Freddie, "You don't need to go, Bert. Just give me five dollars, Mother, and I'll buy him."
"Buy him? Buy what?" asked the surprised Mrs. Bobbsey. "What in the world are you talking about, Freddie?"
"Mike, the goat boy. He's brought Billy here, I guess, and Flossie and I are going to buy him. Can't we, please?"
"What? Buy a goat when we're stopping at this hotel?" cried his mother. "Bert, do go and see what mischief those children have gotten into now. A goat! Oh, dear!"
"I'll go with him, 'cause Mike don't know Bert," offered Freddie.
"And I want to come!" said Flossie. "I want to see our goat."
"Yes, we're going to buy him. Mike brought him to sell to us."
And that is what had happened. When Mrs. Bobbsey followed Bert and Freddie down to the hotel lobby, leaving Nan to look after Flossie in the rooms, this is what she saw:
Out at the side entrance to the hotel was the goat and the rickety express wagon, in charge of a red-haired, snub-nosed boy, Mike's small brother. Mike himself, rather ragged, but clean and neat enough, was in the lobby, sitting at his ease on one of the big leather chairs, waiting.