Stranica 102 [102]
88 PINOCCHIO
and on that account I met on the road two
assassins in charcoal sacks who said to me:
‘Qut with your money,’ and I said to them:
‘I have got none,’ because I had hidden the
four gold pieces in my mouth, and one of the
assassins tried to put his hand in my mouth,
and I bit his hand off and spat it out, but in¬
stead of a hand I spat out a cats paw. And
the assassins ran after me, and I ran, and ran,
until at last they caught me, and tied me by
the neck to a tree in this wood, and said to me:
‘ ‘To-morrow we shall return here, and then you
will be dead with your mouth open, and we
shall be able to carry off the pieces of gold
that you have hidden under your tongue.’ ”
" And the four pieces—where have you put
them?” asked the Fairy.
“TI have lost them!” said Pinocchio; but
he was telling a lie, for they were in his pocket.
He had scarcely told the lie when his nose,
which was already long, grew at once two
fingers longer.
" And where did you Icse them? ”
‘In the wood near here.”
At this second lie his nose went on growing.
“Tf you have lost them in the wood near
here,” said the Fairy, “ we will look for them,
and we shall find them: because everything that
is lost in that wood is always found.”