"How nice and cool it is up here!"

Betty, looking very grown-up and quite as if she were used to taking luncheon in a roof garden every day, smiled contentedly at Uncle Jack over her glass of lemonade.

"Cool as a cucumber," said her uncle. "Hard to realize how sweltering hot it is down there in the street, isn't it? Betty, what's your Safety work going to be when school begins?"

Betty glanced at Bob; she had not yet told even him about her plan. "First, I suppose, I'll serve my month on the School Safety Patrol; and then—then, I'm going to talk to my teacher about starting Safety Games in the lower grades."

"Safety Games!" Bob's tone showed his surprise.

"Yes, Bob. Funny sounding idea, isn't it? But I've thought out a lot of games that the kindergarten children can play, games that will be brand new to them, and lots of fun, and at the same time will get them into the habit of thinking Safety and looking out for themselves on the street."

"Tell us one," demanded Bob.

"Well," said Betty, "one of them I call 'Little Safety Scout.' We can begin by asking the little folks in one grade what things they ought to keep in mind when crossing a busy street. The one that gives the best answer is made 'Little Safety Scout.' One of the biggest boys plays he's the crossing policeman, other children play street cars, others make believe they're automobiles, and so on. The rest are just people trying to get across the street, and they have trouble trying to understand what the policeman's whistle signals mean, and some get run over, and some are saved by the 'Little Safety Scout,' and others show the right way to get on and off a car, and all that."

"Well, Betty Dalton," cried Uncle Jack, "you're a regular little witch! Why, that's a dandy plan. The first thing you know, you'll have the little folks able to take care of themselves on the streets better than the grown-ups do!"

"Fine!" chimed in Bob. "And we can give them Sure Pop buttons, too!"

"That's right, we can," said Betty. "We can give buttons to the children who pass an easy little Safety First examination after we've played the Safety Games a few weeks. And perhaps we might make some Safety posters to hang on the schoolroom walls; just big posters in colored crayons, with a picture of Sure Pop and one of his Safety mottoes below it in big letters,—like, 'Folks that have no wings must use their wits,'—something that would make the children remember the point of the story longer. Don't you think that would help along?"

Thus the three friends went on planning, till the jolly head waiter asked them for the ninth time if they wouldn't have something more, and Uncle Jack looked at his watch with a start of surprise.

"Four o'clock! Whew! We must get out of this. We have lots to do yet before we go home, and I told the chauffeur to be back here at five. Let's stop in the cold-storage room below."

"Is that what makes the roof so cool?" asked Betty, as they looked around on the floor below.

"Ha, ha! Not a bad idea—perhaps it does have something to do with it. No, this is where the store keeps its furs during the summer months. Moths can't stand the cold, you know. Come on, we'll go on down now."

The elevator car was nearly full of people from the roof garden. Betty started to step in, hesitated, then turned back. Uncle Jack motioned her and Bob in, stepped in after them, and carefully turned so that he faced the elevator door.

"That was a risky thing you did just then," he whispered to Betty. "Three quarters of all the elevator accidents are due to stepping in or out in the wrong way. Never do the thing halfway, you know. Always wait till the elevator man stops the car at the floor level and throws the door wide open."

Next to them in the elevator stood two boys—cash boys in the store—who were fooling and scuffling so close to the door that the elevator man cautioned them twice as the car dropped swiftly downward. Finally one of them brought his heel down on the other's foot so hard that the other jumped backward, forgetting everything else for the pain. Forward went his head—bang went his face against the iron grating of the door they were just passing.

The elevator stopped with a jerk. They carried the boy out and sent for the store doctor. Bob and Betty never had to be reminded, in all the years to come, to look sharp when riding in elevators. The memory of that bruised and battered face was warning enough.

"It's a dangerous machine," said Uncle Jack as they left the store. "A fellow who will scuffle in an elevator is foolish enough for almost anything. Here's our next stop," and he showed them into a shop with a big sign over the double door:

"Uncle Jack must be going to have a new uniform," whispered Betty to her twin as the tailor came up with his tape over his shoulders. But it was not around their uncle that the tape measure went, it was around Bob!

"Yes, the regulation khaki," Uncle Jack was saying. "Cut and finish it just like this one," and he handed the tailor a photograph of Sure Pop.

"Your turn next, Betty," said Uncle Jack, and to Betty's great delight and the tailor's surprise, she was measured for a special Safety Scout uniform too!

Uncle Jack did not stop there. He bought the twins Safety Scout hats of fine, light felt, made for hard service, and he was on the point of buying them leather puttees or leggings, but Bob stopped him.

"Canvas leggings are plenty good enough," he said. "The fellows couldn't afford leather, most of them, and we want them all to match."

"Canvas it is, then," nodded his uncle, and went on making up the outfits. Betty sighed happily as they followed him into another store. It all seemed too good to be true! The first thing she knew, they were sitting at a glass-topped table.

Uncle Jack mopped his steaming forehead again. "That tailor shop beats the jungle all hollow for heat!" he exclaimed. "What kind of ice cream do you want, Scouts?"

Betty thought it was time to object. "Oh, Uncle Jack, we've had enough! You've done too much for us already!" All the same, she enjoyed the ice cream just as much as the others did, and when Uncle Jack tucked a box of chocolates under her arm, her cup of joy was full.

"What are you thinking about, Betty?" asked Uncle Jack as the big red automobile bore them merrily homeward; for Betty had not said a word for blocks and blocks.

She patted Uncle Jack's arm—the well one—with a grateful smile. "I was thinking what a perfectly, perfectly lovely day we've had! And wishing," she murmured, wistfully, "that Mother had been along too."

"Now that part's all taken care of," said Uncle Jack. "Your mother's going out for a spin with me tonight after Baby's asleep; she couldn't leave today, she said. She and I will have a good long ride down the river front in the moonlight. Be sure you get a good sleep tonight, now, you two; I want you to be in good trim for a little exploring party I'm planning for tomorrow."

"We'll be up bright and early, ready for anything," Bob told him. "Whew! but this has been a whirlwind of a day! Glad you're going to take Mother out—that's the only way she'd get a cool breeze tonight, all right!"

"But it can't be as nice as the roof garden, even then!" cried his happy twin, as she lifted out her big box of candy and skipped up the front steps two at a time.