"Can we go?" asked Nan.

"Well, perhaps, some day," said her father.

"I'd like to go now," murmured Bert. "Maybe we might see that tramp in Washington, and get back Miss Pompret's dishes."

"Rare china," muttered Nan, half under her breath.

"What tramp is that, and what about Miss Pompret's dishes?" asked Daddy Bobbsey, as he took his cup of tea from Dinah.

Then he had to hear the story of that afternoon's visit of Nan and Bert.

"Oh, I guess Miss Pompret will never see her two china pieces again,"

said Mr. Bobbsey. "If the tramp took them he must have sold them, if he didn't smash them. So don't think of that hundred dollars, Bert and Nan."

"But couldn't we go to Washington, anyhow?" Bert wanted to know.

"Well, not right away, I'm afraid," his father answered. "You have to go to school, you know."

But a few days after that something happened. About eleven o'clock in the morning Bert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie came trooping home. Into the house they burst with shouts of laughter.

"What's the matter? What is it? Has anything happened?" cried Mrs.

Bobbsey. "Why are you home from school at such a time of day?"

"There isn't any school," explained Nan.

"No school?" questioned her mother.

"And there won't be any for a month, I guess!" added Bert. "Hurray!"

"What do you mean?" asked his surprised mother. "No school for a month?"

"No, Mother," added Nan "The steam boiler is broken and they can't heat our room. It got so cold the teacher sent us home."

"An' we came home, too'" added Flossie. "We couldn't stay in our school 'cause our fingers were so cold!"

"Was any one hurt when the boiler burst?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"No," Bert said. "It didn't exactly burst very hard, I guess."

But Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to know just what the trouble was, so she called up the princ.i.p.al of the school on the telephone, and from him learned that the heating boiler of the school had broken, not exactly burst, and that it could no longer heat the rooms.

"It will probably be a month before we can get a new boiler, and until then there will be no more school," he said. "The children will have another vacation."

"A vacation so near Christmas," murmured Mrs. Bobbsey. "I wonder what I can do with my twins?"

Just then the telephone rang, and Mrs. Bobbsey listened. It was Mr.

Bobbsey telephoning. He had heard of some accident at the school, and he called up his house, from the lumberyard, to make sure his little fat fairy and fireman, as well as Nan and Bert, were all right.

"Yes, they're home safe," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "But there will be no school for a month."

"Good!" exclaimed Daddy Bobbsey. "That will just suit me and the children, too. I'll be home in a little while, and I have some wonderful news for them!"

"Oh, I wonder what it can be!" exclaimed Nan, when her mother told her what Daddy Bobbsey had said.

CHAPTER VII

ON A TRIP

The Bobbsey twins could hardly wait for their daddy to come home after their mother had told them what he said over the telephone.

"Tell me again, Mother, just what he told you!" begged Nan.

"Well, he said he was just as glad as you children were, that there was to be no more school for a month," answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "Though, of course, he was sorry that the steam boiler had broken. And then he said he had some wonderful news to tell us all."

"Oh, I know what it is!" cried Bert.

"What?" asked Nan.

"He's found the tramp that took Miss Pompret's dishes," went on Bert, "and he's got them back--daddy has--and he's going to get the hundred dollars! That's it!"

"Oh, I hardly think so," said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a smile. "I don't believe daddy has caught any tramp."

"They do sometimes sleep in the lumberyard," remarked Bert.

"Yes, I know," agreed his mother. "But, even if daddy had caught a tramp, it would hardly be the same man who took Miss Pompret's rare pieces of china--the pitcher and sugar bowl. And if it had been anything like that, daddy would have told me over the telephone."

"But what could the wonderful news be?" asked Nan.

"Something too long to talk about until he gets home, I think," answered Mother Bobbsey. "Have patience, daddy will soon be here!"

But of course the Bobbsey twins could not be patient any more than you could if you expected something unusual. They looked at the clock, they ran to the door several times to look down the street to see if their father was coming, and, at last, when Nan had said for about the tenth time: "I wonder what it is!" a step sounded on the front porch.

"There's daddy now!" cried Bert.

Eight feet rushed to the front door, and Mr. Bobbsey was almost overwhelmed by the four twins leaping at him at once.

"What is it?" cried Bert.

"Tell us the wonderful news!" begged Nan.

"Have you got another dog for us?" Flossie wanted to know.

"Did you bring me a new toy fire engine?" cried Freddie.

"Maybe it's a goat!" exclaimed Flossie.

"Now wait a minute! Wait a minute!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey, as he kissed each one in turn. "Sit down and I'll tell you all about it."