ying
entreatingly:

"Save me, Alidoro! If you do not save me I shall be fried!"

The dog recognized Pinocchio's voice and, to his extreme surprise,
perceived that it proceeded from the floured bundle that the fisherman
held in his hand.

So what do you think he did? He made a spring, seized the bundle in his
mouth, and, holding it gently between his teeth, he rushed out of the
cave and was gone like a flash of lightning.

The fisherman, furious at seeing a fish he was so anxious to eat
snatched from him, ran after the dog, but he had not gone many steps
when he was taken with a fit of coughing and had to give it up.

Alidoro, when he had reached the path that led to the village, stopped
and put his friend Pinocchio gently on the ground.

"How much I have to thank you for!" said the puppet.

"There is no necessity," replied the dog. "You saved me and I have now
returned it. You know that we must all help each other in this world."

"But how came you to come to the cave?"

"I was lying on the shore more dead than alive when the wind brought to
me the smell of fried fish. The smell excited my appetite and I followed
it up. If I had arrived a second later--"

"Do not mention it!" groaned Pinocchio, who was still trembling with
fright. "Do not mention it! If you had arrived a second later I should
by this time have been fried, eaten and digested. Brrr! It makes me
shudder only to think of it!"

Alidoro, laughing, extended his right paw to the puppet, who shook it
heartily in token of great friendship, and they then separated.

The dog took the road home, and Pinocchio, left alone, went to a cottage
not far off and said to a little old man who was warming himself in the
sun:

"Tell me, good man, do you know anything of a poor boy called Eugene who
was wounded in the head?"

"The boy was brought by some fishermen to this cottage, and now--"

"And now he is dead!" interrupted Pinocchio with great sorrow.

"No, he is alive and has returned to his home."

"Not really? not really?" cried the puppet, dancing with delight. "Then
the wound was not serious?"

"It might have been very serious and even fatal," answered the little
old man, "for they threw a thick book bound in cardboard at his head."

"And who threw it at him?"

"One of his school-fellows, a certain Pinocchio."

"And who is this Pinocchio?" asked the puppet, pretending ignorance.

"They say that he is a bad boy, a vagabond, a regular good-for-n