The poor marionette, who was still half asleep, had not yet discovered that his two feet were burned and totally gone. So as soon as he heard his father's voice, he naturally jumped up from his seat to open the door for the old man. But when he did this, he staggered and fell head first onto the floor, making as much noise as a sack of wood dropping from the fifth story of a house.
"Open the door for me!" @Geppetto shouted from outside in the street.
"Father, dear Father, I can't," answered the marionette in despair, crying and rolling helplessly on the floor.
"You've done it before, so why can't you now?"
"Because someone has eaten my feet."
"And who has eaten them?"
"The cat," answered @Pinocchio without hesitation, seeing that little animal busily playing with some wood shavings in the corner of the room.
"Open up, I say!" repeated Geppetto angrily, "or I'll give you a sound whipping the moment I get in."
"Father, believe me, I can't stand up. Oh, dear, oh, dear! I shall have to walk on my knees for the rest of my life."
Geppetto, thinking that all these tears and cries were only new pranks his marionette had dreamed up, climbed up the side of the house and crawled in through the open window.
