ling, gave a little knock.

He waited and waited. At last, after half an hour had passed, a window
on the top floor was opened--the house was four stories high--and
Pinocchio saw a big Snail with a lighted candle on her head looking out.
She called to him:

"Who is there at this hour?"

"Is the Fairy at home?" asked the puppet.

"The Fairy is asleep and must not be awakened; but who are you?"

"It is I."

"Who is I?"

"Pinocchio."

"And who is Pinocchio?"

"The puppet who lives in the Fairy's house."

"Ah, I understand!" said the Snail. "Wait for me there. I will come down
and open the door directly."

"Be quick, for pity's sake, for I am dying of cold."

"My boy, I am a snail, and snails are never in a hurry."

An hour passed, and then two, and the door was not opened. Pinocchio,
who was wet through and through, and trembling from cold and fear, at
last took courage and knocked again, and this time he knocked louder.

At this second knock a window on the lower story opened and the same
Snail appeared at it.

"Beautiful little Snail," cried Pinocchio from the street, "I have been
waiting for two hours! And two hours on such a bad night seem longer
than two years. Be quick, for pity's sake."

"My boy," answered the calm little animal--"my boy, I am a snail, and
snails are never in a hurry."

And the window was shut again.

Shortly afterwards midnight struck; then one o'clock, then two o'clock,
and the door remained still closed.

Pinocchio at last, losing all patience, seized the knocker in a rage,
intending to give a blow that would resound through the house. But the
knocker, which was iron, turned suddenly into an eel and, slipping out
of his hands, disappeared in the stream of water that ran down the
middle of the street.

"Ah! is that it?" shouted Pinocchio, blind with rage. "Since the knocker
has disappeared, I will kick instead with all my might."

And, drawing a little back, he gave a tremendous kick against the house
door. The blow was indeed so violent that his foot went through the wood
and stuck; and when he tried to draw it back again it was trouble thrown
away, for it remained fixed like a nail that has been hammered down.

Think of poor Pinocchio! He was obliged to spend the remainder of the
night with one foot on the ground and the other in the air.

The following morning at daybreak the door was at last opened. The
clever little Snail had taken only nine hours to come down fr