It was a horrible night. It thundered very heavily and it lightened as if the heavens would take fire, while an ugly wind whistled savagely and raised an immense cloud of dust.

Pinocchio was afraid of thunder and lightning, but his hunger was greater than his fear. In a few hundred jumps he arrived at the edge of the town, quite out of breath. He was faint and weak with hunger and fright. But he found the town all dark-and deserted. The stores were closed; the doors of the houses were shut and the windows were bolted; there was not even a dog in the streets; it seemed as if the town were dead.

Then Pinocchio despairingly pulled a doorbell of one of the houses and rang it with all his might, saying to himself, "Some one will come."

Soon a cross old man with a nightcap on his head looked out of a window and cried, "What do you want at this hour?"

"Will you please give me a little bread?"

"Go away," replied the old man, believing that he had to deal with some of the bad boys who go around at night disturbing people by ringing their bells.

Poor Pinocchio returned home, weak from hunger and tired out; and because he had not enough strength to stand upright, he dropped into a chair. Resting his feet on the stove that was filled with burning shavings, he fell asleep. But while he slept, his feet, which were of wood, took fire and slowly became cinders. Pinocchio, however, snored away just as if his feet belonged to some one else.

He was awakened the next morning by some one knocking at the door.

"Who is there?" he asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"It is I," replied a voice.

The voice was the voice of Geppetto .