Poor Geppetto rushed after him but was not able to overtake him, for
that rascal Pinocchio leapt in front of him like a hare, and knocking
his wooden feet together against the pavement made as much clatter as
twenty pairs of peasant's clogs.
"Stop him! stop him!" shouted Geppetto; but the people in the street,
seeing a wooden puppet running like a racehorse stood still in
astonishment to look at it, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed,
until it beats description....
IV
THE FIRE-EATER FRIGHTENS PINOCCHIO
When Pinocchio came into the little puppet theater, an incident
occurred that almost produced a revolution.
I must tell you that the curtain was drawn up, and the play had
already begun.
On the stage Harlequin and Punchinello were as usual quarreling with
each other, and threatening every moment to come to blows.
The audience, all attention, laughed till they were ill as they
listened to the bickerings of these two puppets, who gesticulated
and abused each other so naturally that they might have been two
reasonable beings, and two persons of the world.
All at once Harlequin stopped short, and turning to the public he
pointed with his hand to some one far down in the pit, and exclaimed
in a dramatic tone:
"Gods of the firmament! do I dream, or am I awake? But surely that is
Pinocchio!"
"It is indeed Pinocchio!" cried Punchinello.
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