I shall tell you, then, children, that while poor Geppetto was being led off to prison through no fault of his own, that young scamp Pinocchio, freed from the carabineer's clutches, was running away across the fields to get home all the sooner; and in his mad rush he leapt over steep banks, thorn hedges and ditches full of water, just as a young kid or a little hare might do when chased by hunters.
When he reached the house, he found the street door ajar. He pushed it, went in, and as soon as he had shot the bolt, he flung himself down on the floor, letting out a great big sigh of contentment.
But that contentment did not last long, because he heard someone in the room going:
“Cri-cri-cri!”
“Who's calling me?” said Pinocchio, quite frightened.
“It's me!”
Pinocchio turned round and saw a big cricket slowly climbing up, up the wall.
“Tell me, Cricket, and who are you?”
“I am the Talking Cricket, and I have lived in this room for more than a hundred years.”
“But today this room is mine,” said the puppet, “and if you want to do me a real favour, go away at once, without even looking back.”
“I shall not go away from here,” answered the Cricket, “until I have told you a great truth.”
“Tell it to me, then, and hurry up.”
“Woe to those boys who rebel against their parents and wilfully run away from their father's house. They will never come to any good in this world; and sooner or later they will bitterly regret it.”
“Sing away, my dear Cricket, as much as you like: but I know that tomorrow, at dawn, I'm going to leave this place, because if I stay here, the same thing will happen to me that happens to all other boys: that is, they'll send me to school, and whether I like it or not I'll have to study; and to tell you the truth, I haven't the slightest wish to study, and I have more fun chasing butterflies and climbing trees to take baby birds from their nests.”
“Poor little simpleton!... Don't you know that, if you carry on like that, you'll grow up to be a perfect donkey, and everybody will make fun of you?”
“Be quiet, you nasty croaking Cricket of ill omen!” cried Pinocchio.
But the cricket, who was patient and a philosopher, instead of taking offence at this impertinence, went on in the same tone of voice:
“And if you don't care to go to school, why don't you at least learn a trade, so as to earn yourself an honest crust of bread?”
“Do you want me to tell you?” replied Pinocchio, who was beginning to lose patience. “Of all the trades in the world, there is only one that really suits me.”
“And what trade might that be?”
“Eating, drinking, sleeping, having fun, and living the life of a vagabond from morning till night.”
“For your information,” said the Talking Cricket with his usual calm, “all those who follow that trade nearly always end up in hospital or in prison.”
“Watch out, you nasty Cricket of ill omen!... If you make me lose my temper, woe to you!”
“Poor Pinocchio: I really do pity you!...”
“Why do you pity me?”
“Because you are a puppet and, what is worse, because you have a wooden head.”
At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a fury, and seizing a wooden hammer from the workbench, he hurled it at the Talking Cricket.
Perhaps he did not even think he would hit him; but unfortunately he struck him right on the head, so that the poor Cricket barely had breath enough to go cri-cri-cri, and then there he stayed, stone dead and stuck to the wall.