Page:Collodi - The Story of a Puppet, translation Murray, 1892.djvu/170

 '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 forwards 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 am a rascal. I am always promising to correct myself, and I never keep my word! . . .'