And what do you think the fishes did? Thinking that the books might be something to eat they swam to the edge of the sea in shoals, and looked at the pictures and the print, but after swallowing several pages they spat them out and made wry faces as if to say: "This is no food for us. We are accustomed to something better."
Meanwhile the battle grew fiercer, until a huge old crab came out of the water, and crawling slowly up the beach, cried in the voice of a trombone that has caught a cold: "Stop it! stop it! These battles among boys always end badly. Some disaster is sure to happen." Poor crab! He might as well have spoken to the wind. That naughty Pinocchio, turning around, said to him very rudely: "Hold your tongue, you ugly old crab! You would do better to eat some stewed seaweed and cure that cold of yours. Go home to bed and take a nap!"
In the meantime the boys, who had used up all their own books, looked around, and spying Pinocchio's they seized them in less time than it takes to tell. Among his school books was a volume bound in thick card-
