Stranica 115 [115]
PINOCCHIO 99
them, and who allow themselves to be entrapped
by those who are more cunning than they are.”
" Are you perhaps speaking of me‘ ”
“Yes, I am speaking of you, poor Pinoc¬
chio—of you who are simple enough to believe
that money can be sown and gathered in fields
in the same way as beans and gourds. I also
believed it once, and to-day I am suffering for
it. ‘T'o-day—but it 1s too late—I have at last
learnt that to put a few pennies honestly to¬
gether it is necessary to know how to earn
them, either by the work of our own hands or
by the cleverness of our own brains.”
" I don’t understand you,” said the puppet,
who was already trembling with fear.
" Have patience! I will explain myself bet¬
ter,” rejoined the Parrot. “ You must know,
then, that whilst you were in the town the Fox
and the Cat returned to the field: they took
the buried money and then fled like the wind.
And now he that catches them will be clever.”
Pinocchio remained with his mouth open,
and not choosing to believe the Parrot’s words
he began with his hands and nails to dig up the
earth that he had watered. And he dug, and
dug, and dug, and made such a deep hole that
a rick of straw might have stood upright in it:
but the money was no longer there.