The puppet did not answer, but went to the canal and, filling the same old shoe full of water, he proceeded to water the earth afresh that covered his gold pieces.
Whilst he was thus occupied another laugh, and still more impertinent than the first, rang out in the silence of that solitary place.
"Once for all," shouted Pinocchio in a rage, "may I know, you ill-educated Parrot, what are you laughing at?"
"I am laughing at those simpletons who believe in all the foolish things that are told them, and who allow themselves to be entrapped by those who are more cunning than they are."
"Are you perhaps speaking of me?"
"Yes, I am speaking of you, poor Pinocchio—of you who are simple enough to believe that money can be sown and gathered in fields in the same way as beans and gourds. I also believed it once, and to-day I am suffering for it. To-day—but it is too late—I have at last learnt that to put a few pennies honestly together it is necessary to know how to earn them, either by the work of our own hands or by the cleverness of our own brains."
"I don't understand you," said the puppet who was already trembling with fear.
"Have patience! I will explain myself better," rejoined the Parrot. "You must know, then, that whilst you were in the town the Fox and the Cat returned to the field; they took the buried money and then fled like the wind. And now he that catches them will be clever."
Pinocchio remained with his mouth open, and not choosing to believe the Parrot's words he began with his hands and nails to dig up the earth that he had watered. And he dug, and dug, and dug, and made such a deep hole that a rick of straw might have stood up in it; but the money was no longer there.