Part 17 (1/2)
”You will either answer or I will give you two kisses with the shovel on your right cheeks and two on your left.”
”'Talian pigs! Brigands!”
”May you be skinned alive! To call me a brigand! Me! Pinocchio, which creature is this, Spitz or Spotz?”
”Franz.”
”Listen, Franz, if you dare insult me another time, I'll untie your hands and then I'll give you so many boxes on your ear that'll make you more of an imbecile than your emperor.”
”You kill us, we die mouths shut.”
”We, we ... Wait before you talk in the plural; wait till I put this red-hot shovel to Stolz's ear, and then ...”
Ciampanella came closer to the Croat, armed with his other heated iron, but suddenly he felt a blow on his eye which half blinded him.
”... they can ...”
He couldn't finish because Pinocchio burst out laughing so wildly that he had to hold his stomach. Ciampanella, who had been taken unaware by the gla.s.s of water Pinocchio had thrown at him, let out all his anger on him.
”Youngster, look out for yourself. I won't stand nonsense from you. I owe to our enemies the respect enjoined by regulations, but you I can take by the nape of the neck and set you down on the stove, and I'll roast you as if you were beef.”
Pinocchio became suddenly serious and began to swing his wooden leg so nervously that if Major Cutemup had seen him he would have turned as yellow as a Chinaman with fear. If the descendant of Romulus and Remus had had the slightest idea of the kick which menaced him at this moment he would have grown calm as if by magic. But Pinocchio, who had seen Franz and Stolz exchange sly glances and a smile full of irony, held himself in and, after scratching his head solemnly, approached Ciampanella, who was wiping his eye with his ap.r.o.n, and taking hold affectionately of his arm, said:
”So you want to roast me on your stove?”
”As I told you.”
”Wouldn't it be better to cook something on it for our supper this evening?”
”This evening's supper? But you know that this evening I wouldn't light the fire if the commander-in-chief came in person to command me to. When the company is in action I am free to do what I want, and when I am free to do what I want I don't do anything. So if you are hungry you'll have to eat bread and compressed meat, and if you don't like it you'll have to fast.”
”Listen, Ciampanella; you reason like Menenius Agrippa, who was an ancient Roman able to make things clearer than modern Romans, but sometimes you get tangled up in your premises.”
”Listen, youngster, don't insult me, because as sure as Ciampanella is my name I will wring your neck like a chicken's.”
”But I'm not insulting you.”
”Then tell me what kind of things are _premises_; otherwise ...”
”Otherwise you'll take me and make me sit on the stove and roast me, won't you? That proves that the fire is lighted and that the charcoal is burning for nothing, and so if, for example, the commander-in-chief should pay you a visit he would give you a fortnight's imprisonment for it, because when the company's in action you are free to do what you want, but not in the kitchen, and if you are hungry you must eat bread and compressed meat or fast.”
”Heh, youngster! I didn't light the stove for culinary purposes, but for strategic reasons. It was to make these two beasts talk.”
”But they haven't talked.”
”We'll fling them out and let the mad dogs eat them.”
”But if you, instead of heating the shovel and tongs, had roasted a young pullet and served it with one of those famous sauces ...”
”Chicken in the Roman style with potato puffs ...”