h, look! There's a bus! Let's ride on top," cried Sunny Boy, pointing out toward the street as one of the Fifth Avenue busses lumbered into sight.

"But our taxi is here," reasoned Mr. Horton, helping in Sunny Boy's mother as he spoke. "And I couldn't go up on top with these heavy bags. Come, Son, and you shall have your ride to-morrow."

Sunny Boy climbed into the taxi cab, Mr. Horton followed, and they were on the way to their hotel.

It was a brief ride, but in those few moments Sunny Boy was sure he had seen more automobiles than he had ever seen in his life. He probably had, for it was the time of day when the city traffic is heaviest, and never-ending streams of motor-cars and trucks and wagons were being driven on the cross streets, as well as on the avenues.

"I feel as if I wasn't here," said Sunny Boy slowly, watching the crowds from the open window.

Mr. Horton glanced down at him and smiled.

"You do look rather small in all this," he admitted; "but I should say you were very much here. And here's our hotel, and I think you are ready for supper."

The taxi cab stopped before the McAlpin Hotel, and Sunny Boy, holding fast to Daddy's hand, went into a beautiful high-ceilinged room ablaze with light. He and his mother sat down in one of the big chairs while Mr. Horton registered and arranged for their room. Then a severe-faced boy took the suitcases and led them into an elevator.

"I wonder if he's cross," thought Sunny Boy to himself, studying the face of the boy as he stood stiffly, his eyes fixed grimly on the wire grating of the elevator.

He was staring at him so hard that when the boy turned and caught him Sunny Boy blushed. The boy stuck out his tongue and immediately resumed his stern expression.

"He wears such a lot of buttons," thought Sunny Boy, who in all his life had never been in a hotel to stay over night. "I wonder did he really stick out his tongue—"

The elevator stopped while Sunny Boy was trying to decide, and the Hortons followed the boy along a silent corridor till he stopped before a door and, unlocking it, ushered them into a large, pleasant room.

"Well, dear, hungry?" asked Mrs. Horton.

"He did it again," said Sunny Boy.

"Who did what?" laughed Mrs. Horton. "Sunny, don't let New York addle you like this. I asked if you were hungry."

"That boy did stick out his tongue," explained Sunny Boy. "I don't guess he is cross at all. When he closed the door he winked at me. And I am hungry, Mother."

Supper, as Sunny Boy insisted on calling it, or dinner, was rather a vague affair to him, for he was not only hungry but very sleepy after the long train ride. He liked riding down in the elevator and up again, but he was glad enough to go to bed.

"It's just like the three bears," he said to Mother as she helped him to undress. "Big Bear, Middle-sized Bear, and Little Bear," he added, pointing to the three beds in the room. "Did they know I was coming and put a little bed in for me?"

"Daddy asked them to," said Mother. "Now a little wash, precious, and you'll be in Dreamland in two seconds."

There was a pretty white bathroom opening into the room, and Sunny Boy enjoyed a splash, and then tumbled into bed.

In the morning he had a hard time to get dressed, because he found it so interesting to stare out of the window down at the busy streets.

"Such lots of people and trolley cars and automobiles—and everything!" he reported to his mother, who insisted that he really must finish dressing. "Do you suppose they know I'm looking at 'em?"

"I doubt it," said Mother, brushing his hair smooth. "Now don't put your nose on the screen again, Sunny. We're going downstairs in just a minute. Daddy is almost through shaving."

"You look dressed up, Mother," announced Sunny Boy critically. "And aren't we going to eat breakfast first?"

"First?" repeated Mrs. Horton, puzzled. "Oh, you mean I have my hat and veil on. Well, dear, I believe you and I are going out right after breakfast, and I won't have to come upstairs again. Ready, Daddy?"

Soon they were in the dining room.

"Where are we going?" asked Sunny Boy, at the table and trying not to feel queer when the waiter brought him his cantaloupe with the same flourish with which he served Daddy sitting opposite.

"Why, I'm going to be very busy this morning," explained Mr. Horton, "and I thought you and Mother might enjoy a little shopping trip. I'll meet you here for lunch. Anything you specially want to buy, Sunny?"

"Some post cards," replied Sunny Boy promptly. "Ruth Nelson wants one for her collection. And I could get Aunt Bessie a present."

"I'd wait till we're almost ready to go home for Aunt Bessie's present," said Mr. Horton kindly. "You'll know better what you want then. But get the post cards by all means this morning."

He gave Sunny Boy a bright new fifty-cent piece.

"I think we'll walk," decided Mrs. Horton, serving the golden brown omelet carefully. "Put your money in your new purse, dear. Harry, have you heard from Mr. Vernon yet?"

Left to himself while his parents talked business matters, Sunny Boy looked about the dining room. He saw several children, little girls and boys here and there, and a little girl across the room nodded and smiled at him. Sunny Boy wondered where the boy who had carried up their suitcases was.

"I didn't bring my hat," he mourned when breakfast was over. "Can I go and get it, Mother?"

"I brought it down, dear," was the answer. "We're going right away. Daddy has some telephoning to do, and we'll go on."

In the hotel lobby Sunny Boy saw the suitcase boy, as he had named him, again. He didn't seem quite so severe as he had at night, and when Sunny smiled at him he actually returned it with a grin that showed a set of very white teeth.

"What a funny carriage," said Sunny Boy, calling Mother's attention to a queer looking vehicle on two wheels and drawn by a bob-tailed horse, which was the first thing he saw when they got out on the street. "Look where the coachman is."

The driver was perched up on a little seat behind and held the reins over the roof of the coach.

"That's a hansom cab," explained Mrs. Horton. "They were very popular and stylish before the automobile came."

Privately Sunny Boy thought it wasn't very handsome, and the poor old horse was no longer stylish if he had ever been, but there was little time to think about hansom cabs, for just then Mother remarked:

"Here's the big store where they have such a wonderful toy department."

It was a big store, much larger than any Sunny Boy had ever seen in Centronia, and it seemed filled with people to him.

"Oh, Mother!" he stopped so short that several people nearly fell over him, "what's that?"

"That" was a long shining moving thing on which people were being wafted gently upward. It reminded Sunny Boy of the fairy tale he had seen in the motion picture where the Wishing Girl who wanted to fly was suddenly granted her wish.

"Where do they go?" Sunny Boy asked so loudly that a floor-man heard and answered him.

"That's an escalator," he announced, much as one might say: "That's a strawberry."

"It's a moving stairway, precious," added his mother. "I suppose you want to ride on it. Well, first I must get Daddy some handkerchiefs, for we never packed him a one. And we'll find out on which floor the toys are, too."

Sunny Boy waited patiently while the handkerchiefs were bought, and then while Mother chose a new veil, a pretty white one with black dots.

"Here are the post-cards, Sunny," she said, turning into another aisle. "See which ones you want for Ruth and Nelson."

"What do they say, Mother?" asked Sunny Boy, wishing he could read. "May I send all the boys some?"

Mrs. Horton said he could, and she helped him select a dozen views of New York, promising that he should print his name on each one and that she would write whatever messages he wanted sent.

"You can look them over this afternoon," she suggested, "and see what places you want to see first. That will be nice, won't it?"

"Yes, Mother," agreed Sunny Boy. "And now can we ride on the alligator?"

"The escalator?" corrected Mother, laughing heartily. "Why yes, I think we are about ready to do that. The girl at the handkerchief counter told me the toys were on the sixth floor. Do you think you want to ride that far on such a queer thing?"

Sunny Boy was enraptured. He had not supposed that a moving stairway went further than one story, and the thought of riding to the sixth floor was bliss. He felt decidedly odd when he put his foot on the moving platform at first, but ahead of him and behind him people were serenely moving up, so he knew everything must be all right. When he reached the top he slid off with such an unexpected bump that he gave a startled cry and the girl who was there to see that no one was hurt laughed at him.

"You said we could go to the sixth floor!" exclaimed Sunny Boy, turning aggrievedly to Mother who had followed him.

"And so we can, dear, but not without stopping," explained Mrs. Horton. "See, we turn here and there is another escalator. At every floor we get off one and then on another."

Sunny Boy thought this was absolutely the most delightful way of going upstairs he had ever tried. He wondered why the stores at home didn't have moving stairways, and he resolved to come down the whole six flights the same way. He was astonished when the time came to go home and he found that the escalators didn't carry people down, but only up.

"I see a horse!" he shouted, when they were half way up the last stairway.

They stepped off onto a floorful of toys that reminded Sunny Boy of Christmas and birthdays and Santa Claus all rolled into one. A tank of water in which boats were sailing caught his eye.

"I wish I'd brought my boat," he remarked, standing on tiptoe to see over the edge. "See the motor-boat, Mother? It's just like Captain Franklin's."

Captain Franklin was the man who had found Sunny Boy when he was drifting out to sea in a rowboat that summer, as related in the book called "Sunny Boy at the Seashore."

"If you want to see them race," said the young man in charge of the boats, "I'll wind another up for you."