advised. "Tip and Top can snuggle down with Skyrocket on the floor near
Ted. Are we all ready now?"

"As ready as we ever shall be," his wife answered. "My, what a queer
load!" she said, with a laugh, as she looked back at the collection and
the children. "People will think we're a traveling menagerie!"

This, however, did not worry the Curlytops. They liked it, and, a little
later, they were on their way back toward Cresco. The Curlytops liked
their new pets, and they also loved those they had had for a longer
time--Skyrocket and Turnover.

"We'll try to get home early," said Mr. Martin to his wife, as he steered
the automobile through the streets of Pocono. "We'll have to fix up a
place for these pets."

"Yes," agreed his wife. "They are going to be quite a care. But the
children will love them."

They stopped for lunch at a little restaurant, and the children were
afraid lest some of their pets might escape while the meal was being
served. But Mr. Martin saw a young man, sitting in front of a barber shop
next to the restaurant, and said to him:

"Will you watch may automobile and the animals while we are in the dining
room? I'll give you fifty cents."

"I'll be glad to do it," said the young man.

So long as he was on guard the Curlytops were satisfied. But when they
came out they made a sad discovery. Ted jumped up on the running-board
and looked down into the automobile to make sure all the pets were safe.
The alligator, the parrot, the white mice and rats, the cat, the monkey,
and two dogs were there. But there was no sign of Tip, the white poodle
with a black spot on the end of his tail.

"Where is Tip? Oh, where is Tip?" cried Ted. "He's gone!"

CHAPTER VII

A FUZZY BURGLAR

"What's that?" asked Mr. Martin, who was the last of the Curlytop family
to come out of the restaurant. "Who is gone? One of the pets?"

"Tip is gone," answered Teddy. "Oh, where is he?"

"Maybe he's hiding back of the monkey's cage," suggested Janet, for Jack,
the pet monkey, lived in a sort of cage, or box, and he had been moved
from Uncle Toby's house in it.

"No, Tip isn't here at all," said Teddy. "Top is here and Skyrocket, but
Tip is gone."

"That can't be," said the young man who had said he would guard the
animals while the Curlytops ate. "I've been here all the while, and I
didn't see even one of the white mice get away."

He seemed to be a nice, good-natured young man, and appeared to be as
much surp