“Hold your tongue, you tiresome crab!  You had better suck some liquorice lozenges to cure that cold in your throat.”

Just then the boys, who had no more books of their own to throw, spied at a little distance the satchel that belonged to Pinocchio, and took possession of it.

Amongst the books there was one bound in strong cardboard with the back and points of parchment.  It was a Treatise on Arithmetic.

One of the boys seized this volume and, aiming at Pinocchio’s head, threw it at him with all the force he could muster.  But instead of hitting the puppet it struck one of his companions on the temple, who, turning as white as a sheet, said only: 

“Oh, mother! help, I am dying!” and fell his whole length on the sand.  Thinking he was dead, the terrified boys ran off as hard as their legs could carry them and in a few minutes they were out of sight.

But Pinocchio remained.  Although from grief and fright he was more dead than alive, nevertheless he ran and soaked his handkerchief in the sea and began to bathe the temples of his poor school-fellow.  Crying bitterly in his despair, he kept calling him by name and saying to him: 

“Eugene! my poor Eugene!  Open your eyes and look at me!  Why do you not answer?  I did not do it; indeed it was not I that hurt you so! believe me, it was not!  Open your eyes, Eugene.  If you keep your eyes shut I shall die, too.  Oh! what shall I do? how shall I ever return home?  How can I ever have the courage to go back to my good mamma?  What will become of me?  Where can I fly to?  Oh! how much better it would have been, a thousand times better, if I had only gone to school!  Why did I listen to my companions? they have been my ruin.  The master said to me, and my mamma repeated it often:  ‘Beware of bad companions!’ Oh, dear! what will become of me, what will become of me, what will become of me?”

And Pinocchio began to cry and sob, and to strike his head with his fists, and to call poor Eugene by his name.  Suddenly he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

He turned and saw two soldiers.

“What are you doing there, lying on the ground?” they asked Pinocchio.

“I am helping my school-fellow.”

“Has he been hurt?”

“So it seems.”

“Hurt indeed!” said one of them, stooping down and examining Eugene closely.

“This boy has been wounded in the temple.  Who wounded him?”

“Not I,” stammered the puppet breathlessly.

“If it was not you, who then did it?”

“Not I,” repeated Pinocchio.

“And with what was he wounded?”

“With this book.”  And the puppet picked up from the ground the Treatise on Arithmetic, bound in cardboard and parchment, and showed it to the soldier.

“And to whom does this belong?”

“To me.”

“That is enough, nothing more is wanted.  Get up and come with us at once.”