Page 181 [181]
" I will tell you. . . . Without observing it
I rubbed myself against a wall which had been
freshly whitewashed,’ answered the puppet,
ashamed to confess that he had been floured
like a fish prepared for the frying-pan.
“ And what have you done with your
jacket, your trousers, and your cap? ”
" I met with robbers who took them from
me. ‘Tell me, good old man, could you per¬
haps give me some clothes to return home in? ”
" My boy, as to clothes, I have nothing but
a little sack in which I keep beans. If you wish
for it, take it; there it is.”
Pinocchio did not wait to be told twice. He
took the sack at once, and with a pair of scissors
he cut a hole at the end and at each side, and
put it on like a shirt. And with this slight
clothing he set off for the village.
But as he went he did not feel at all com¬
fortable—so little so, indeed, that for a step
forward he took another backwards, and he
said, talking to himself:
““ How shall I ever present myself to my
good little Fairy? What will she say when
she sees me? ... Will she forgive me this
second escapade? ... I bet that she will not
forgive me! Oh, I am sure that she will not
forgive me!... And it serves me right, for I
11