, sprang down from the back of his donkey and went
and took hold of his mouth.

Imagine his surprise when he found that the donkey was crying--crying
like a boy!

"Eh! Sir Coachman," cried Pinocchio to the little man, "here is an
extraordinary thing! This donkey is crying."

"Let him cry; he will laugh when he is a bridegroom."

"But have you by chance taught him to talk?"

"No; but he spent three years in a company of learned dogs, and he
learned to mutter a few words."

"Poor beast!"

"Come, come," said the little man, "don't let us waste time in seeing a
donkey cry. Mount him and let us go on: the night is cold and the road
is long."

Pinocchio obeyed without another word. In the morning about daybreak
they arrived safely in the "Land of Boobies."

It was a country unlike any other country in the world. The population
was composed entirely of boys. The oldest were fourteen, and the
youngest scarcely eight years old. In the streets there was such
merriment, noise and shouting that it was enough to turn anybody's head.
There were troops of boys everywhere. Some were playing with nuts, some
with battledores, some with balls. Some rode velocipedes, others wooden
horses. A party were playing at hide and seek, a few were chasing each
other. Some were reciting, some singing, some leaping. Some were amusing
themselves with walking on their hands with their feet in the air;
others were trundling hoops or strutting about dressed as generals,
wearing leaf helmets and commanding a squadron of cardboard soldiers.
Some were laughing, some shouting, some were calling out; others clapped
their hands, or whistled, or clucked like a hen who has just laid an
egg.

In every square, canvas theaters had been erected and they were crowded
with boys from morning till evening. On the walls of the houses there
were inscriptions written in charcoal: "Long live playthings, we will
have no more schools; down with arithmetic," and similar other fine
sentiments, all in bad spelling.

Pinocchio, Candlewick and the other boys who had made the journey with
the little man, had scarcely set foot in the town before they were in
the thick of the tumult, and I need not tell you that in a few minutes
they had made acquaintance with everybody. Where could happier or more
contented boys be found?

In the midst of continual games and every variety of amusement, the
hours, the days and the weeks passed like lightning.

"Oh, what a delightful