every gold piece gives you an increase of five hundred; multiply
five hundred by five, and the following morning will find you with two
thousand five hundred shining gold pieces in your pocket."

"Oh! how delightful!" cried Pinocchio, dancing for joy, "As soon as
ever I have obtained those gold pieces, I will keep two thousand for
myself, and the other five hundred I will make a present of to you
two."

"A present to us?" cried the Fox with indignation, and appearing much
offended. "What are you dreaming of?"

"What are you dreaming of?" repeated the Cat.

"We do not work," said the Fox, "for dirty interest, we work solely to
enrich others."

"Others!" repeated the Cat.

"What good people!" thought Pinocchio to himself; and forgetting there
and then his papa, the new coat, the spelling-book, and all his good
resolutions, he said to the Fox and the Cat:

"Let us be off at once. I will go with you."

VII

THE INN OF THE RED-CRAWFISH

They walked, and walked, and walked, until at last, towards evening,
they arrived dead tired at the Inn of The Red-Crawfish.

"Let us stop here, a little," said the Fox, "that we may have
something to eat and rest ourselves for an hour or two. We will start
again at midnight, so as to arrive at the Field of Miracles by dawn
to-morrow morning."

Having gone into the inn they all three sat down to table, but none of
them had any appetite.

The Cat, who was suffering from indigestion and feeling seriously
indisposed, could only eat thirty-five mullet with tomato sauce, and
four portions of tripe with Parmesan cheese; and because she thought
the tripe was not seasoned enough, she asked three times for the
butter and grated cheese!

The Fox would also willingly have picked a little, but as his doctor
had ordered him a strict diet, he was forced to content himself simply
with a hare dressed with a sweet and sour sauce, and garnished lightly
with fat chickens and early pullets. After the hare he sent for a made
dish of partridges, rabbits, frogs, lizards, and other delicacies;
he could not touch anything else. He had such a disgust for food, he
said, that he could put nothing to his lips.

The one who ate the least was Pinocchio. He asked for some walnuts
and a hunch of bread, and left everything on his plate. The poor boy,
whose thoughts were continually fixed on the Field of Miracles, had
got in anticipation an indigestion of gold pieces.

When they had supped the Fox sa