While he was thus occupied another laugh, 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 you are 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 today I am
suffering for it. Today--but it is too late--I have at last learned 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 while 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 upright in it, but the money
was no longer there.

He rushed back to the town in a state of desperation and went at once to
the Courts of Justice to denounce the two knaves who had robbed him to
the judge.

The judge was a big ape of the gorilla tribe, an old ape respectable for
his age, his white beard, but especially for his gold spectacles without
glasses that he was always obliged to wear, on account of an
inflammation of the eyes that had tormented him for many years.

Pinocchio related in the presence of the judge all the particulars of
the infamous fraud of which he had been the victim. He gave the names,
the surnames, and other details, of the two rascals, and ended by
demanding justice.

The judge listened with great benignity; took a lively interest in the
story; was much touched and moved; and when the puppet had nothing
further to say he stretched out his hand and rang a bell.

At this summons two mastiffs immediately ap