Stranica 32 [32]
22 PINOCCHIO
and placed him on the floor to teach him to
walk.
Pinocchio’s legs were stiff and he could not
move, but Geppetto led him by the hand and
showed him how to put one foot before the
other.
When his legs became flexible Pinocchio
began to walk by himself and to run about the
room; until, having gone out of the house door,
he jumped into the street and escaped.
Poor Geppetto rushed after him but was
not able to overtake him, for that rascal Pinoc¬
chio leapt in front of him like a hare, and knock¬
ing his wooden feet together against the pave¬
ment made as much clatter as twenty pairs of
peasants’ 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.
At last, as good luck would have it, a car¬
abineer arrived who, hearing the uproar, im¬
agined that a colt had escaped from his master.
Planting himself courageously with his legs
apart in the middle of the road, he waited with
the determined purpose of stopping him, and
thus preventing the chance of worse disasters.
When Pinocchio, still at some distance, saw