“And I want to come!” said Flossie.  “I want to see our goat.”

“Your goat!” cried Nan.

“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.

“I’ve brought de goat,” he said to Freddie, as soon as he saw that small Bobbsey with Bert.

“What does it all mean?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, while a crowd of the hotel guests and help gathered about.

“Why, your little boy, Ma’am, what I rode in me goat wagon up and down our block, said you’d buy Billy when I was ready to sell him.  I’m ready now, ‘cause I’m goin’ to work.  So I brought de goat an’ wagon here to de hotel, just as your little boy made me promise to do.  It’ll be five dollars for de goat.”

For a moment Mrs. Bobbsey did not know what to say.  Then she turned to Freddie and asked: 

“Did you really tell him you’d buy his goat, Freddie?”

“I said you’d buy it for Flossie and me.  Won’t you?  We can have such fun with it!”

“A goat in a New York hotel!” cried Bert, laughing, “Oh, dear!”

“Hush, Bert,” said his mother.  “Freddie did not know any better.  Of course we can’t keep it,” she said to Mike, “and I’m sorry you had the trouble of bringing him here.  My little boy didn’t stop to think, I’m afraid.  He should have told me.  But here is a dollar for your trouble, and I think you can easily sell your goat somewhere else.”

“Oh, yes, I can easy sell him,” said Mike.  “But your little boy made me promise to bring Billy to dis hotel to-day and here I am, ‘cordin’ to promise.”

“Yes, I see you kept your word,” and Mrs. Bobbsey could not help smiling.  “But really we have no place to keep a goat here, and we could hardly take it to Lakeport with us.  So I’m afraid Freddie will have to do without it.”

“All right,” said Mike good-naturedly, as he took the dollar.

Of course Freddie and Flossie were disappointed at not having the goat and wagon, but they soon forgot that when their mother promised to take them to see another play that afternoon.

“It’s a wonder Flossie or Freddie didn’t try to bring the goat up to our rooms in the elevator,” said Bert, when they were in their apartment again.

“Well, he was a good goat!” declared Freddie.

“And he could go fast,” added Flossie.

“I was going to play fireman with him when we got back to Lakeport,” went on Freddie.  “Now I can’t.”

“I think you’ll have just as much fun some other way,” said his mother, laughing.