found a buyer anxious to learn the price asked.
"Four dollars,” replied the stable boy.
"I will give you twenty-five cents for him. Do you suppose I am buying him to do hauling? Oh no. I want to skin him. I see that his skin is hard—it will be just the thing for a drum or a tambourine for our band."
Just imagine how poor Pinocchio felt when he heard that he was only worth twenty-five cents! And he was to be made into a drum head and beaten all the time!
As soon as the buyer had paid for him he led the donkey to the top of a cliff along the seashore, and tying a heavy stone around his neck and binding his feet together with cords, he pushed the poor creature over the edge. The donkey, weighed down by the stone, sank to the bottom at once, and the buyer who held one end of the rope tightly in his hand, sat down on the rocks and waited patiently until the little donkey would drown, intending then to skin him.
