Page:The adventures of Pinocchio (Cramp 1904).djvu/26

 Then Geppetto took him by the neck, and, while he led him back, said, shaking him, “Wait until we get home and I will give you a whipping.”

Pinocchio, at this threat, threw himself on the ground and refused to walk farther. Meanwhile the curious people and the loungers began to stop and surround them. First one said something, then another. “Poor marionette!” said one of them, he is right not to want to go back to his home. Who knows how hard Geppetto beats him?” And others added maliciously: “That Geppetto appears a kind man, but he is a true tyrant with boys. If he gets that poor marionette in his hands, he will break him in pieces.”

Altogether they made so much noise that the soldier gave Pinocchio back his liberty and took to prison instead that poor old man, who, not finding words at first with which to defend himself, wept like a calf, and on approaching the prison stammered out: “Wicked son! and to think I tried so hard to make a good marionette! I ought to have thought of all this at first.”

What happened afterward is a story so strange that you will hardly believe it. However, I will tell it to you in the following chapters.