Page:Collodi - The Story of a Puppet, translation Murray, 1892.djvu/23

 and Pinocchi the children, and all of them did well. The richest of them was a beggar.'

Having found a name for his puppet he began to work in good earnest, and he first made his hair, then his forehead, and then his eyes.

The eyes being finished, imagine his astonishment when he perceived that they moved and looked fixedly at him.

Geppetto seeing himself stared at by those two wooden eyes took it almost in bad part, and said in an angry voice:

'Wicked wooden eyes, why do you look at me?'

No one answered.

He then proceeded to carve the nose; but no sooner had he made it than it began to grow. And it grew, and grew, and grew, until in a few minutes it had become an immense nose that seemed as if it would never end.

Poor Geppetto tired himself out with cutting it off; but the more he cut and shortened it, the longer did that impertinent nose become!

The mouth was not even completed when it began to laugh and deride him.

'Stop laughing!' said Geppetto, provoked; but he might as well have spoken to the wall.

'Stop laughing, I say!' he roared in a threatening tone.