former dignity; and therefore, with submission to your better judgments, I think that for his destruction, and to get him a successor,* seven and twenty pence is little enough on conscience."-" Proceed," said Don Quixote." Then for this that is cleft in two," said Master Peter, taking up the Emperor Charlemagne," I think he is richly worth + one and thirty pence half-penny."-" Not so richly neither," quoth Sancho,-" Truly," said the innkeeper, "I think, it is pretty reasonable; but we will make it even money, let the poor fellow have half a crown."

"Come," said Don Quixote, "let him have his full price; we will not stand haggling for so small a matter in a case like this: So make haste, Master Peter, for it is near supper-time, and I have some strong presumptions that I shall eat heartily.""Now," said Master Peter," for this figure here that is without a nose and blind with one eye, being the fair Melisandra, I will be reasonable with you; give me fourteen pence, I would not take less from my brother.""Nay," said Don Quixote, "the devil is in it, if Melisandra be not by this time with her husband, upon the frontiers of France at least ; for the horse that carried them seemed to me rather to fly than to gallop; and now you tell me of a Melisandra here without a nose forsooth, when it is ten to one but she is now in her husband's arms in a good bed in France. Come, come, friend, God

*Four reals and a half.

Two reals and

+ Five reals and a quarter. twelve maravedis.

help every man to his own; let us have fair dealing; so proceed."

Master Peter finding that the knight began to harp upon the old string, was afraid he would fly off; and making as if he had better considered of it, "Cry ye mercy, sir," said he, "I was mistaken; this could not be Melisandra indeed, but one of the damsels that waited on her; and so I think five pence will be fair enough for her." In this manner he went on, setting his price upon the dead and wounded, which the arbitrators moderated to the content of both parties; and the whole sum amounted to forty reals and three quarters, which Sancho paid him down; and then Master Peter demanded two reals more, for the trouble of catching his ape. "Give it him," said Don Quixote, "and set the monkey to catch the ape; and now would I give two hundred more to be assured that Don Gayferos and the lady Melisandra were safely arrived in France among their friends."-"Nobody can better tell than my ape," said Master Peter, "though the devil himself will hardly catch him, if hunger, or his kindness for me do not bring us together again to-night. However to-morrow will be a new day, and when it is light we will see what is to be done.”

The whole disturbance being appeased, to supper they went lovingly together, and Don Quixote treated the whole company, for he was liberality itself. Before day the man with the lances and halberts left the inn, and some time after the scholar and the page came to take leave of the knight; the first to return home, and the second to continue his journey,

towards whose charges Don Quixote gave him twelve reals. As for Master Peter, he knew too much of the knight's humour to desire to have anything to do with him, and therefore having picked up the ruins of the puppet-show, and got his ape again, by break of day he packed off to seek his fortune. The innkeeper, who did not know Don Quixote, was as much surprised at his liberality as at his madness. In fine, Sancho paid him very honestly by his master's order, and mounting a little before eight o'clock, they left the inn, and proceeded on their journey; where we will leave them, that we may have an opportunity to relate some other matters very requisite for the better understanding of this famous history.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Wherein is discovered who Master Peter was, and his Ape; as also Don Quixote's ill success in the Braying Adventure, which did not end so happily as he desired and expected.

CID HAMET, the author of this celebrated history, begins this chapter with this asseveration, "I swear as a true Catholic;" which the translator illustrates and explains in this manner: That historian's swearing like a true Catholic, though he was a Mahometan Moor, ought to be received in no other sense, than that, As a true Catholic, when he affirms anything with an oath, does or ought to swear truth, So would he relate the truth as impartially as a

Christian would do, if he had taken such an oath, in what he designed to write of Don Quixote; especially as to the account that is to be given us of the person who was known by the name of Master Peter, and the fortune-telling ape, whose answers occasioned such a noise, and created such an amazement all over the country. He says then, that any one who has read the foregoing part of this history, cannot but remember one Gines de Passamonte, whom Don Quixote had rescued, with several other galley-slaves, in Sierra Morena; a piece of service for which the knight was not over-burdened with thanks, and which that ungrateful pack of rogues repaid with a treatment altogether unworthy such a deliverance. This Gines de Passamonte, or, as Don Quixote called him, Ginesillo de Parapilla, was the very man that stole Sancho's ass; the manner of which robbery, and the time when it was committed, being not inserted in the first part, has been the reason that some people have laid that, which was caused by the printer's neglect, to the inadvertency of the author. But it is beyond all question, that Gines stole the ass while Sancho slept on his back, making use of the same trick and artifice which Brunelo practised when he carried off Sacripante's horse from under his legs, at the siege of Albraca. However, Sancho got possession again, as has been told you before.

Gines, it seems, being obnoxious to the law, was apprehensive of the strict search that was made after him, in order to bring him to justice for his repeated villanies, which were so great and numerous, that he himself had wrote a large book of them; and

therefore he thought it advisable to make the best of his way into the kingdom of Arragon, and having clapped a plaister over his left eye, resolved in that disguise to set up a puppet-show, and stroll with it about the country; for you must know, he had not his fellow at any thing that could be done by slight of hand. Now it happened, that in his way he fell into the company of some Christian slaves who came from Barbary, and struck a bargain with them for this ape, whom he taught to leap on his shoulder at a certain sign, and to make as if he whispered something in his ear. Having brought his ape to this, before he entered into any town he informed himself in the adjacent parts, as well as he could, of what particular accidents had happened to this or that person; and having a very retentive memory, the first thing he did was to give them a sight of his show, that represented sometimes one story and sometimes another, which were generally well known and taking among the vulgar. The next thing he had to do, was to commend the wonderful qualities of his ape, and tell the company, that the animal had the gift of revealing things past and present; but that in things to come, he was altogether uninstructed. He asked* two reals for every answer, though now-and-then he lowered his price as he felt the pulse of his customers. Sometimes when he came to the houses of people of whose concerns he had some account, and who would ask the ape no

*About a shilling.