Page:Collodi - The Story of a Puppet, translation Murray, 1892.djvu/204

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
192
ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO

possession of them with great delight and satisfaction, and carried them off to the fairs and markets to be sold. And in this way he had in a few years made heaps of money and had become a millionaire.

What became of Candlewick I do not know; but I do know that Pinocchio from the very first day had to endure a very hard, laborious life.

When he was put into his stall his master filled the manger with straw; but Pinocchio having tried a mouthful spat it out again.

Then his master, grumbling, filled the manger with hay; but neither did the hay please him.

'Ah!' exclaimed his master in a passion. 'Does not hay please you either? Leave it to me, my fine donkey; if you are so full of caprices I will find a way to cure you! . . .'

And by way of correcting him he struck his legs with his whip.

Pinocchio began to cry and to bray with pain, and he said, braying:

'J-a, j-a, I cannot digest straw! . . .'

'Then eat hay!' said his master, who understood perfectly the asinine dialect.

'J-a, j-a, hay gives me a pain in my stomach.'

'Do you mean to pretend that a little donkey like you must be kept on breasts of chickens, and capons in jelly?' asked his