othing."

"Calumnies! all calumnies!"

"Do you know this Pinocchio?"

"By sight!" answered the puppet.

"And what is your opinion of him?" asked the little man.

"He seems to me to be a very good boy, anxious to learn, and obedient
and affectionate to his father and family."

Whilst the puppet was firing off all these lies, he touched his nose and
perceived that it had lengthened more than a hand. Very much alarmed he
began to cry out:

"Don't believe, good man, what I have been telling you. I know Pinocchio
very well and I can assure you that he is a very bad boy, disobedient
and idle, who, instead of going to school, runs off with his companions
to amuse himself."

He had hardly finished speaking when his nose became shorter and
returned to the same size that it was before.

"And why are you all covered with white?" asked the old man suddenly.

"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 forward 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? 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!"

When he reached the village it was night and very dark. A storm had come
on and as the rain was coming down in torrents he went straight to the
Fairy's house, resolved to knock at the door.

But when he was there his courage failed him and instead of knocking he
ran away some twenty paces. He returned to the door a second time and
laid hold of the knocker, and, tremb