Geppetto, who had understood nothing of all that jumbled talk, except that his little marionette was hungry, felt sorry for him, and pulling three pears out of his pocket, he offered them to the boy, saying:
"These three pears were for my breakfast, but I give them to you gladly. Eat them and stop crying."
Pinocchio quickly stopped crying and said, "If you want me to eat them, please peel them for me."
"Peel them?" asked Geppetto, very much surprised. "I should never have thought, dear boy of mine, that you were so dainty and fussy about your food. That's bad, very bad! In this world, even as children, we must get used to eating anything we have, for we never know what life may hold in store for us!"
"You may be right," answered Pinocchio, haughtily, "but I will not eat the pears if they are not peeled. I don't like them that way."
And Geppetto, good as he was, took out a knife, peeled the three pears, and put the skins in a row on the table.
Pinocchio ate one pear in an instant and started to throw the core away, but Geppetto held his arm.
"Oh, no, don't throw it away! Everything in this world may be of some use, even pear cores!"
"But I will not eat the core!" cried Pinocchio, getting very angry indeed.
"Who knows what may happen?" commented Geppetto calmly.
But even though Pinocchio devoured the pears, he refused to eat the cores, and he placed the three of them on the table next to the skins. Then he started to cry again, declaring, "I'm still hungry."
"But I have no more food to give you; you ate everything I had."
"Really, nothing -- nothing at all!?" demanded the marionette.
"I only have these three cores and these skins left over.
