“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 I recognized you by your voices.  That is why I am here.”

At these words the two little donkeys were quite stupefied and stood with their heads down, their ears lowered, and their tails between their legs.

At first the little man stroked and caressed them; then, taking out a currycomb, he currycombed them well.  And when by this process he had polished them till they shone like two mirrors, he put a halter round their necks and led them to the market-place, in hopes of selling them and making a good profit.

And indeed buyers were not wanting.  Candlewick was bought by a peasant whose donkey had died the previous day.  Pinocchio was sold to the director of a company of buffoons and tight-rope dancers, who bought him that he might teach him to leap and to dance with the other animals belonging to the company.