Oldal 175 [175]
PINOCCHIO 155
regard, I will leave you the choice of how you
would like to be cooked. Would you like to
be fried in the frying-pan, or would you prefer
to be stewed with tomato sauce?”
" To tell the truth,” answered Pinocchio,
“if I am to choose, I should prefer to be set
at liberty and to return home.”
" You are joking! Do you imagine that
I would lose the opportunity of tasting such a
rare fish? It is not every day, I assure you,
that a puppet fish 1s caught in these waters.
Leave it to me. I will fry you with the other
fish, and you will be quite satisfied. It is
always consolation to be fried in company."
At this speech the unhappy Pinocchio be¬
gan to cry and scream and to implore for
mercy; and he said, sobbing: " How much bet¬
ter it would have been if. I had gone to school!
. . . I would listen to my companions and now
Pam vaymne cori): Pht. inl. TAY
And he wriggled like an eel, and made in¬
describable efforts to slip out of the clutches
of the green fisherman. But it was useless:
the fisherman took a long strip of rush, and
having bound his hands and feet as if he had
been a sausage, he threw him into the pan with
the other fish.
He then fetched a wooden bow] full of flour
and began to flour them each in turn, and as