ty pairs of peasant's clogs.

"Stop him! stop him!" shouted Geppetto; but the people in the street,
seeing a wooden puppet running like a racehorse stood still in
astonishment to look at it, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed,
until it beats description....

IV

THE FIRE-EATER FRIGHTENS PINOCCHIO

When Pinocchio came into the little puppet theater, an incident
occurred that almost produced a revolution.

I must tell you that the curtain was drawn up, and the play had
already begun.

On the stage Harlequin and Punchinello were as usual quarreling with
each other, and threatening every moment to come to blows.

The audience, all attention, laughed till they were ill as they
listened to the bickerings of these two puppets, who gesticulated
and abused each other so naturally that they might have been two
reasonable beings, and two persons of the world.

All at once Harlequin stopped short, and turning to the public he
pointed with his hand to some one far down in the pit, and exclaimed
in a dramatic tone:

"Gods of the firmament! do I dream, or am I awake? But surely that is
Pinocchio!"

"It is indeed Pinocchio!" cried Punchinello.

"It is indeed himself!" screamed Miss Rose, peeping from behind the
scenes.

"It is Pinocchio! it is Pinocchio!" shouted all the puppets in chorus,
leaping from all sides on to the stage. "It is Pinocchio! It is our
brother Pinocchio! Long live Pinocchio!"

"Pinocchio, come up here to me," cried Harlequin, "and throw yourself
into the arms of your wooden brothers!"

At this affectionate invitation Pinocchio made a leap from the end of
the pit into the reserved seats; another leap landed him on the head
of the leader of the orchestra, and then he sprang upon the stage.

The embraces, the hugs, the friendly pinches, and the demonstrations
of warm brotherly affection that Pinocchio received from the excited
crowd of actors and actresses of the puppet dramatic company beat
description.

The sight was doubtless a moving one, but the public in the pit,
finding that the play was stopped, became impatient, and began to
shout "We will have the play--go on with the play!"

It was all breath thrown away. The puppets, instead of continuing the
recital, redoubled their noise and outcries, and putting Pinocchio on
their shoulders they carried him in triumph before the footlights.

At that moment out came the showman. He was very big and so ugly that
the sight of him was enough