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" 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 perhaps 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 comfortable—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
