'Wait for me there. I will come down and open the door directly.'
'Be quick, for pity's sake, for I am dying of cold.'
'My boy, I am a snail, and snails are never in a hurry.'
An hour passed, and then two, and the door was not opened. Pinocchio, who was wet through, and trembling from cold and fear, at last took courage and knocked again, and this time he knocked louder.
At this second knock a window on the lower story opened, and the same Snail appeared at it.
'Beautiful little Snail,' cried Pinocchio from the street, 'I have been waiting for two hours! And two hours on such a bad night seem longer than two years. Be quick, for pity's sake.'
'My boy,' answered the calm, phlegmatic little animal—'my boy, I am a snail, and snails are never in a hurry.'
And the window was shut again.
Shortly afterwards midnight struck; then one o'clock, then two o'clock, and the door remained still closed.
Pinocchio at last, losing all patience, seized the knocker in a rage, intending to give a blow that would resound through the house. But the knocker, which was iron, turned suddenly into an eel, and slipping out of his hands disappeared in the
