"Where to?" asked the man, as he helped the children up inside the car.

"Oh, we want a nice, long ride," said Bunny. "A nice, long ride; don't we, Sue?"

"Yep," answered the little girl.

CHAPTER XII

BUNNY ORDERS DINNER

You may think it strange that the man on the taxicab automobile would so quickly help Bunny Brown and his sister up into his machine and give them a ride. And that, without asking for any money.

But it was not at all strange in New York. There are many children in that big city, and often they go about by themselves, some who are no larger than Bunny and Sue. They get used to looking out for themselves, learn how to make their way about, and they often go in taxicabs alone.

So the automobile man thought nothing of it when Bunny said he wanted a ride. The automobile man just thought the children's father, or mother, had sent them out to go somewhere.

"And so you want a long ride," repeated the automobile man, as he closed the door so Bunny or Sue would not fall out when he started. "How about Central Park? Do you want to go there?"

"Do we want to go to Central Park, Sue?" asked Bunny.

"Is they elephants there, like a circus?" asked the little girl.

"Is they?" Bunny asked of the automobile man.

"Yes, there are some animals in the park. Not as many as up in the Bronx Zoo, but that's a little too far for me to go. I'll take you to Central Park if you say so."

"Please do," begged Bunny. "We want to see the animals. We were in a circus once, Sue and I were. Our dog was a blue striped tiger, and we had a green painted calf, for a zebra."

"That must have been some circus!" laughed the automobile man, as he got up on his seat, and took hold of the steering wheel. "Well, here we go!"

And away went the automobile, taking Sue and Bunny off to Central Park, and their mother and Aunt Lu didn't know a thing about it!

"Isn't this nice, Sue?" asked Bunny, when they had ridden on for a few blocks.

"Yes," answered Sue. "I like it. But I wish we had our dog Splash here with us, Bunny."

"Yes, it would be fine!" Bunny said.

Speaking of the circus had made Sue think about Splash, who was far away, at home in Bellemere.

The taxicab wound in and out among other cabs, horses and wagons of all sorts. Now it would have to go slowly, through some crowded street, and again the children were moving swiftly, when there was room to speed.

"He's a awful nice man to give us a ride like this," said Bunny to Sue.

"Yes; isn't he?" answered the little girl. "There's lots of people getting rides, Bunny; see!"

Indeed there were many other taxicabs, and other automobiles on the streets of New York, but Bunny and Sue looked most often at the taxicabs like their own.

"There must be a awful lot of nice men, like ours, in New York," Bunny went on. And, mind you, neither he nor Sue thought they would have to pay for their automobile ride. They just thought you got in one of the taxicabs, and rode as far as you liked, for nothing.

Pretty soon they were at Central Park.

"Now where shall I take you?" asked the man.

"Down by a elephant," spoke up Sue.

"Are you sure your mother will let you go?" asked the taxicab man. He felt he must, in a way, look after the children.

"Oh, yes," said Bunny. "Mother would let us. She likes us to see animals. She lets us have a circus whenever we like."

Bunny and Sue had on nice clothes, and the chauffeur knew they had come from a street where many rich persons lived, so he was sure if the children did not have with them the money to pay him, that their folks would settle his bill.

"You can get out here, and walk along that path," he said, stopping his machine on a roadway. "Then you can see the elephant, the lion and the tiger. I'll wait for you here."

Hand in hand, Bunny and Sue went to the place in Central Park where the animals are kept. It was not far from where the automobile had stopped, out on Fifth Avenue, New York, and Bunny looked back, several times, as he and his sister went down the steps, to make sure he would know the place to find the automobile again, when he wanted to go home.

"Oh, there's a elephant!" cried Sue, as, walking along, her hand in Bunny's, she saw one of the big animals, just stuffing some hay into his mouth with his trunk. It was a warm day, and the elephant was out in the "back yard" of his cage. In the winter he was kept in the elephant house, where the people could look at him standing behind the heavy iron bars, but in summer he was allowed to go out of doors, though his yard had a fence of big iron bars all around it.

"I wish we had some peanuts to give him," said Sue.

"Well, I haven't any money," answered Bunny. "Anyhow, if I had, Sue, I'd rather buy us each a lollypop. The elephant has hay to eat."

"Yes, I know," said Sue. "But I like to see him pick up peanuts with his trunk."

However, they had no money, so they could not feed peanuts to the elephant. Some other children, though, had bought bags of the nuts, and these they tossed in to the big animal. There was a sign on his yard, which said no one must feed the animals, but no one stopped the children, so Sue did see, after all, the elephant chewing the roasted nuts.

For some time Bunny and Sue watched the elephants. There were two of them, and, after a while, a keeper came into the yard, and handed a large mouth organ to the biggest elephant. The wise creature held it in his trunk, and, to the surprise of Sue and her brother, began to blow on the mouth organ, making music, though of course the elephant could not play a regular tune.

"Oh, isn't he smart, Bunny!" cried Sue.

"He--he's a regular circus elephant!" Bunny cried. "I like him!"

The other children, who had come to Central Park, also enjoyed seeing the big elephant eat peanuts, and play a mouth organ.

"I'd like to see some monkeys," said Bunny, after a bit, when the elephant seemed to have gone to sleep standing up, for elephants do sleep that way.

"The monkeys are over in that house," a boy told Bunny, pointing to a brown building not far from the elephant's cage and yard.

"Oh, let's go!" cried Sue.

Soon she and her brother were watching the monkeys do funny tricks, climb up the sides of their cage, eat peanuts and pull each other's tails and ears.

Bunny and Sue spent some time in Central Park, looking at the different animals. There was one, almost as big as an elephant, only not so tall.

He was called a hippopotamus, and he swam in a tank of water, next door to a pool in which lived some mud turtles and alligators. When the hippopotamus opened his mouth it looked big enough to hold a washtub.