Page:Collodi - The Story of a Puppet, translation Murray, 1892.djvu/76

 your money under your tongue! Spit it out at once!'

But Pinocchio was obdurate.

'Ah! you pretend to be deaf, do you? Wait a moment, leave it to us to find a means to make you spit it out.'

And one of them seized the puppet by the end of his nose, and the other took him by the chin, and began to pull them brutally, the one up and the other down, to constrain him to open his mouth. But it was all to no purpose. Pinocchio's mouth seemed to be nailed and riveted together.

Then the shortest assassin drew out an ugly knife and tried to force it between his lips like a lever or chisel. But Pinocchio as quick as lightning caught his hand with his teeth, and with one bite bit it clean off and spat it out. Imagine his astonishment when instead of a hand he perceived that he had spat a cat's paw on to the ground.

Encouraged by this first victory he used his nails to such purpose that he succeeded in liberating himself from his assailants, and jumping the hedge by the roadside he began to fly across country. The assassins ran after him like two dogs chasing a hare: and the one who had lost a paw ran on one leg, and no one ever knew how he managed it.

After a race of some miles Pinocchio could do no more. Giving himself up for lost he climbed the stem of a very high