"Come on in. These are two of my twins, Mr. Martin," he added to the gentleman who was sitting near his desk. The two "Washington children,"

looked up from the lumber books they had been reading. No, I am wrong, they had not been reading them--only looking at the pictures.

"Two of your twins?" repeated Mr. Martin, with a smile. "Do you mean to say you have more twins at home?"

"Oh, yes, another set. Smaller than these. I wish you would see Flossie and Freddie. Come here, Bert and Nan. This is my friend, Mr. Martin," he continued, "and these are his children, Billy and Nell. They live in Washington, D.C."

So that was what Mr. Bobbsey meant. At first, Nan said afterward, she had a little notion that her father might have meant the boy and girl were the children of General George Washington. But a moment's thought told Nan that this could not be. General Washington's children, supposing him to have had any, would have been grown up into old men and women and would have pa.s.sed away long ago. But Billy and Nell Martin lived in Washington, District of Columbia (which is what the letters D.C. stand for) and, Bert and Nan knew, Washington was the capital, or chief city, of the United States.

"Mr. Martin came in to see me on business," explained Daddy Bobbsey. "He is traveling for a lumber firm, and on this trip he brought his boy and girl with him."

"They aren't twins, though," said Mr. Martin with a nod at Nan and Bert.

"I think it's lovely to be a twin!" said Nell, with a smile at Nan.

"Don't you have lots of fun?"

"Yes, we do," Nan said.

"I should think you could have fun in this lumberyard," remarked Billy Martin. "I'd like to live near it."

"Yes, we play in it," said Bert; and now that the "ice had been broken,"

as the grown folks say, the four children began to feel better acquainted.

"Did you come down for anything special?" asked Mr. Bobbsey of Bert.

"Yes, Daddy. Here's a letter mother gave us for you," the boy answered.

"Oh, this is the one I have been expecting," said Mr. Bobbsey to Mr.

Martin. "Now we can talk business. Bert and Nan, don't you want to take Billy and Nell out in the yard and show them the lake? But don't fall in, and don't climb on the lumber," he added.

"Oh, I'd love to look at the lake!" cried Nell.

"And I like to see big piles of lumber," said her brother Billy.

"The children will be all right," said Mr. Bobbsey, in answer to a look from Mr. Martin. "My older twins often play about the lumberyard, and they'll see that Billy and Nell come to no harm."

So while the two men talked over lumber matters, Bert and Nan showed Billy and Nell the sights of their father's lumberyard, and took the Washington children down to Lake Metoka, where the blue waters sparkled in the sun.

"Oh, this is lovely!" exclaimed Nell. "It's nicer than Washington!"

"Don't you have a lake there?" asked Bert.

"No; but we have the Potomac River," answered Billy. "That's nice, but not as nice as this lake. Now let's go and look at the big piles of lumber."

"Yes, let's," echoed Nell.

The children tossed some chips into the lake, pretending they were boats, and then they walked around the yard to where long boards and planks were stacked into great piles, waiting to be taken away on boats or wagons.

Bert asked one of the workmen if they could play with some of the boards, and, receiving permission to do so, they had fun making something they called a house, and then on a see-saw.

"Oh, I always did love to see-saw!" said the little girl from Washington. "We don't get much of a chance to play that way where I come from."

"We have see-saw rides lots of times down here," answered Nan.

"Well, that's Because your father owns a lumberyard, and you can get plenty of boards to use for a see-saw," said Henry.

For an hour or more Bert and Nan entertained the Washington children in the lumberyard, and then, as it was getting close to dinner time, Nan told Bert they had better go back to their father's office.

They found Mr. Martin about to leave. And then Mr. Bobbsey thought of something.

"Look here, Henry!" he exclaimed to his friend, "there's no need of your going back to that hotel. Come out to the house--you and the children--and have dinner with me. I want you and your boy and girl to meet Flossie and Freddie, and I want you to meet Mrs. Bobbsey."

"Well, I'd like to," said Mr. Martin slowly, while the eyes of Nell and Billy glowed in delight. "But, perhaps it might bother your wife."

"Oh, no!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey. "She likes company. I'll telephone out that we're coming, and Dinah, that's our cook, will be delighted to get up something extra. They'll be glad to see you. Come out to the house, all of you, and make me a nice visit. Can't you stay a day or so?"

Eagerly Nan and Bert waited for the answer, for they liked the Washington children very much.

"Oh, no, we can't stay later than this evening," said Mr. Martin. "I've got other business to look after. But I'll come out to dinner with you."

"Oh, we'll have lots of fun!" whispered Nan to Nell. "You'll just love Flossie--she's so cute!"

"I'll show you my dog Snap," said Bert to Billy. "You ought to have seen him scare a strange dog just before we came down here."

"I like dogs," said Billy. "We could have one in Washington if we had a barn to keep him in."

"We've got a barn," went on Bert. "You ought to have seen what happened there this morning to Flossie and Freddie," and then he told about the little twins having been hidden under the hay.

Mr. Bobbsey's automobile was in the lumberyard, and in this the trip was quickly made to the home of the four twins, after Mrs. Bobbsey had been told, by telephone, that company was coming.

Nell and Billy were glad to see Flossie and Freddie, and the six children had fun playing around the house and barn with Snoop and Snap.

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey wanted Mr. Martin to stay two or three days with his children, but the Washington lumberman said it could not be done this time.

"I'm on a business trip," he said, "and I can't spend as much time in visiting and pleasure as I'd like, though I am trying to give Billy and Nell a good time. This is the first time I have ever taken them on a trip with me."

"And we've had such a lovely time!" exclaimed Nell.

"Packs of fun!" added her brother.

"I'm sorry we can't stay longer," went on Mr. Martin. "You folk must come to Washington some day."

"Yes, I expect to," said Mr. Bobbsey. "I've been counting on going there some day on some business matters."

"Well, when you come be sure to bring the children," said the father of Nell and Billy. "I think they would enjoy seeing the White House, the big Capitol building, the Congressional Library, Washington's home at Mt. Vernon and places like that."

"Could we see the Washington Monument?" asked Nan. She remembered looking at a picture of that in her geography.

"Oh, yes, I'd show you that, too," said Mr. Martin.