“But how came you to come to the cave?”

“I was lying on the shore more dead than alive when the wind brought to me the smell of fried fish.  The smell excited my appetite and I followed it up.  If I had arrived a second later—­”

“Do not mention it!” groaned Pinocchio, who was still trembling with fright.  “Do not mention it!  If you had arrived a second later I should by this time have been fried, eaten and digested.  Brrr!  It makes me shudder only to think of it!”

Alidoro, laughing, extended his right paw to the puppet, who shook it heartily in token of great friendship, and they then separated.

The dog took the road home, and Pinocchio, left alone, went to a cottage not far off and said to a little old man who was warming himself in the sun: 

“Tell me, good man, do you know anything of a poor boy called Eugene who was wounded in the head?”

“The boy was brought by some fishermen to this cottage, and now—­”

“And now he is dead!” interrupted Pinocchio with great sorrow.

“No, he is alive and has returned to his home.”

“Not really? not really?” cried the puppet, dancing with delight.  “Then the wound was not serious?”

“It might have been very serious and even fatal,” answered the little old man, “for they threw a thick book bound in cardboard at his head.”

“And who threw it at him?”

“One of his school-fellows, a certain Pinocchio.”

“And who is this Pinocchio?” asked the puppet, pretending ignorance.

“They say that he is a bad boy, a vagabond, a regular good-for-nothing.”

“Calumnies! all calumnies!”

“Do you know this Pinocchio?”

“By sight!” answered the puppet.

“And what is your opinion of him?” asked the little man.

“He seems to me to be a very good boy, anxious to learn, and obedient and affectionate to his father and family.”

Whilst the puppet was firing off all these lies, he touched his nose and perceived that it had lengthened more than a hand.  Very much alarmed he began to cry out: 

“Don’t believe, good man, what I have been telling you.  I know Pinocchio very well and I can assure you that he is a very bad boy, disobedient and idle, who, instead of going to school, runs off with his companions to amuse himself.”

He had hardly finished speaking when his nose became shorter and returned to the same size that it was before.

“And why are you all covered with white?” asked the old man suddenly.

“I will tell you.  Without observing it I rubbed myself against a wall which had been freshly whitewashed,” answered the puppet, ashamed to confess that he had been floured like a fish prepared for the frying-pan.

“And what have you done with your jacket, your trousers, and your cap?”

“I met with robbers, who took them from me.  Tell me, good old man, could you perhaps give me some clothes to return home in?”