ly! With all my heart."

"Will you let me see your ears?"

"Why not? But first, my dear Pinocchio, I should like to see yours."

"No: you must be first."

"No, dear. First you and then I!"

"Well," said the puppet, "let us come to an agreement like good
friends."

"Let us hear it."

"We will both take off our caps at the same moment. Do you agree?"

"I agree."

"Then, attention!"

And Pinocchio began to count in a loud voice:

"One, two, three!"

At the word "Three!" the two boys took off their caps and threw them
into the air.

And then a scene followed that would seem incredible if it were not
true. That is, that when Pinocchio and Candlewick discovered that they
were both struck with the same misfortune, instead of feeling full of
mortification and grief, they began to prick their ungainly ears and to
make a thousand antics, and they ended by going into bursts of laughter.

And they laughed, and laughed, and laughed, until they had to hold
themselves together. But in the midst of their merriment Candlewick
suddenly stopped, staggered, and, changing color, said to his friend:

"Help, help, Pinocchio!"

"What is the matter with you?"

"Alas, I cannot any longer stand upright."

"Neither can I," exclaimed Pinocchio, tottering and beginning to cry.

And whilst they were talking, they both doubled up and began to run
round the room on their hands and feet. And as they ran, their hands
became hoofs, their faces lengthened into muzzles, and their backs
became covered with a light gray hairy coat sprinkled with black.

But do you know what was the worst moment for these two wretched boys?
The worst and the most humiliating moment was when their tails grew.
Vanquished by shame and sorrow, they wept and lamented their fate.

Oh, if they had but been wiser! But instead of sighs and lamentations
they could only bray like asses; and they brayed loudly and said in
chorus: "Hee-haw!"

Whilst this was going on some one knocked at the door and a voice on the
outside said:

"Open the door! I am the little man, I am the coachman who brought you
to this country. Open at once, or it will be the worse for you!"

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXIII

PINOCCHIO IS TRAINED FOR THE CIRCUS

Finding that the door remained shut the little man burst it open with a
violent kick and, coming into the room, he said to Pinocchio and
Candlewick with his usual little laugh:

"Well done, boys! You brayed well, and