“So that,” said Pinocchio, more and more bewildered, “supposing I buried my five sovereigns in that field, how many should I find there the following morning?”

“That is an exceedingly easy calculation,” replied the Fox, “a calculation that you can make on the ends of your fingers.  Every sovereign will give you an increase of five hundred; multiply five hundred by five, and the following morning will find you with two thousand five hundred shining gold pieces in your pocket.”

“Oh! how delightful!” cried Pinocchio, dancing for joy.  “As soon as ever I have obtained those sovereigns, I will keep two thousand for myself and the other five hundred I will make a present of to you two.”

“A present to us?” cried the Fox with indignation and appearing much offended.  “What are you dreaming of?”

“What are you dreaming of?” repeated the Cat.

“We do not work,” said the Fox, “for interest:  we work solely to enrich others.”

“Others!” repeated the Cat.

“What good people!” thought Pinocchio to himself, and, forgetting there and then his papa, the new coat, the spelling-book, and all his good resolutions, he said to the Fox and the Cat: 

“Let us be off at once.  I will go with you.”

[Illustration:  A little chicken popped out, very gay and polite]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII

THE INN OF THE RED CRAW-FISH

They walked, and walked, and walked, until at last, towards evening, they arrived, all tired out, at the inn of The Red Craw-Fish.

“Let us stop here a little,” said the Fox, “that we may have something to eat, and rest ourselves for an hour or two.  We will start again at midnight, so as to arrive at the Field of Miracles by dawn tomorrow morning.”

Having gone into the inn they all three sat down to table, but none of them had any appetite.

The Cat, who was suffering from indigestion and feeling seriously indisposed, could only eat thirty-five fish with tomato sauce and four portions of tripe with Parmesan cheese; and because she thought the tripe was not seasoned enough, she asked three times for the butter and grated cheese!

The Fox would also willingly have picked a little, but as his doctor had ordered him a strict diet, he was forced to content himself simply with a hare dressed with a sweet and sour sauce, and garnished lightly with fat chickens and early pullets.  After the hare he sent for a made dish of partridges, rabbits, frogs, lizards and other delicacies; he could not touch anything else.  He cared so little for food, he said, that he could put nothing to his lips.

The one who ate the least was Pinocchio.  He asked for some walnuts and a hunch of bread, and left everything on his plate.  The poor boy’s thoughts were continually fixed on the Field of Miracles.