"Franz."
"Listen, Franz, if you dare insult me another time, I'll untie your hands and then I'll give you so many boxes on your ear that'll make you more of an imbecile than your emperor."
"You kill us, we die mouths shut."
"We, we ... Wait before you talk in the plural; wait till I put this red-hot shovel to Stolz's ear, and then ..."
Ciampanella came closer to the Croat, armed with his other heated iron, but suddenly he felt a blow on his eye which half blinded him.
"...they can..."
He couldn't finish because Pinocchio burst out laughing so wildly that he had to hold his stomach. Ciampanella, who had been taken unaware by the glass of water Pinocchio had thrown at him, let out all his anger on him.
"Youngster, look out for yourself. I won't stand nonsense from you. I owe to our enemies the respect enjoined by regulations, but you I can take by the nape of the neck and set you down on the stove, and I'll roast you as if you were beef."
Pinocchio became suddenly serious and began to swing his wooden leg so nervously that if Major Cutemup had seen him he would have turned as yellow as a Chinaman with fear. If the descendant of Romulus and Remus had had the slightest idea of the kick which menaced him at this moment he would have grown calm as if by magic. But Pinocchio, who had seen Franz and Stolz exchange sly glances and a smile full of irony, held himself in and, after scratching his head solemnly, approached Ciampanella, who was wiping his eye with his apron, and taking hold affectionately of his arm, said:
"So you want to roast me on your stove?"