The little monkey had gone only a hundred paces from the Fly Inn when Candle-bit, jumping from his bed, called down the stairs with all the voice he had in his throat: “Ho, Mr. Dry-throat! If you wish to depart, wake up! In a little time it will be day.”
“I will leave immediately,” replied the chief of the assassins. “I will pay you for the supper when I return.”
“Happy journey to you! Good-bye!”
Dry-throat searched in the dark for his coat; and, after having found it and put it on, he placed his hand in the pocket to assure himself that the little monkey was there. But, while doing so, he gave a cry of pain, for he was scratched badly by terrible sharp nails.
“You miserable scoundrel of a little monkey!” he said. “So you want to scratch me! Woe to you if you try to repeat that trick! I swear to you that I will tear every nail from your hand, one by one!”
Saying this, he went out of the inn and closed the door. After walking along for three hours, he felt that his hand was bleeding. Then he became angry, and so enraged did he become that he struck his pocket a hard blow.
“Gvaooo,” cried a voice from the inside, plaintively mewing.
“Ah! You are playing with me! You are amusing yourself by making a noise like a cat! Take that, too!” And again he struck his pocket with more force than the first time.
“Gvaooo! gvaooo! gvaooo!” repeated the same voice, with an angry mewing.
“Then you will not stop?” he said, putting his hand into his pocket. But again he received a deep scratch. Then, crazed with pain and losing patience, he took out of his pocket a large pair of sharpened scissors and mumbled threateningly between his teeth: “Now, now, I will cure you of those sharp nails! From to-day, ugly monkey, you will never scratch again, not even a flea bite.”
Raising his coat, he opened the pocket wide, so as to grab the little monkey, when all of a sudden out jumped a large tabby-cat, that scratched the eyes of the chief assassin. It was Nanni, the cat that belonged to Candle-bit.
Dry-throat yelled with anger, and would have liked to follow it; but the unfortunate man could see no more. The ferocious nails of the cat had blinded him. He wandered around for a hundred days and nights in the forest without meeting any one to show him the way home. Formerly, when the wolves saw him from afar, they ran away with great fear. Now, knowing that he was blind and incapable of defending himself, they played a thousand tricks. Formerly the birds and the rabbits, at the approach of this fearful huntsman, vanished like so many shadows. Now the same sparrows and even the little baby sparrows, passing near him, struck his nose with their wings for amusement, and the rabbits and the little baby rabbits danced around his feet the polka and the tarantella. What beautiful courage! What bravery! is it not, my little readers? And yet it is the same among boys. They are very much like the sparrows and the rabbits. They make the same fun of those poor unfortunates who, either through age or illness, cannot defend themselves nor make themselves respected.
The fact was that one night, while Dry-throat went down a small road, among the highest trees of the forest, searching for something to eat, he found the road barricaded by a small house. Very happy, he knocked at the door.
“Who is there?” asked a voice from the inside.
“I am a poor blind man, lost in the forest. I am seeking a bed for the night.”
“Poor blind man! Come in!” repeated the same voice, as the door opened.
Now I leave you to think how surprised our little friend Beppo was when he saw that he had opened the door for his terrible persecutor.