“Lies, my boy, are known in a moment. There are two kinds of lies, lies with short legs and lies with long noses. Yours, just now, happen to have long noses.”
Pinocchio, not knowing where to hide his shame, tried to escape from the room, but his nose had become so long that he could not get it out of the door.
CHAPTER 18
Pinocchio finds the Fox and the Cat again, and goes with them to sow the gold pieces in the Field of Wonders.
Crying as if his heart would break, the Marionette mourned for hours over the length of his nose. No matter how he tried, it would not go through the door. The Fairy showed no pity toward him, as she was trying to teach him a good lesson, so that he would stop telling lies, the worst habit any boy may acquire. But when she saw him, pale with fright and with his eyes half out of his head from terror, she began to feel sorry for him and clapped her hands together. A thousand woodpeckers flew in through the window and settled themselves on Pinocchio’s nose. They pecked and pecked so hard at that enormous nose that in a few moments, it was the same size as before.
“How good you are, my Fairy,” said Pinocchio, drying his eyes, “and how much I love you!”
“I love you, too,” answered the Fairy, “and if you wish to stay with me, you may be my little brother and I’ll be your good little sister.”
“I should like to stay—but what about my poor father?”
“I have thought of everything. Your father has been sent for and before night he will be here.”