r up with one hand by the waist. I looked
down upon the servants, and one or two friends who were in the house,
as if they had been pygmies, and I a giant. I told my wife she had
been too thrifty, for I found she had starved herself and her daughter
to nothing. In short, I behaved myself so unaccountably that they were
all of the captain's opinion when he first saw me, and concluded I had
lost my wits. This I mention as an instance of the great power of
habit and prejudice.

In a little time, I and my family and friends came to a right
understanding; but my wife protested I should never go to sea any
more; although my evil destiny so ordered that she had not power to
hinder me, as the reader may know hereafter. In the meantime, I here
conclude the Second Part of my unfortunate Voyages.

DON QUIXOTE

DON QUIXOTE DETERMINES TO BECOME A KNIGHT

_By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra_

At a certain village in La Mancha, of which I cannot remember the
name, there lived not long ago one of those old-fashioned gentlemen
who are never without a lance upon a rack, an old target, a lean
horse, and a greyhound. His diet consisted more of beef than mutton;
and with minced meat on most nights, lentils on Fridays, griefs and
groans on Saturdays, and a pigeon extraordinary on Sundays, he
consumed three quarters of his revenue; the rest was laid out in a
plush coat, velvet breeches, with slippers of the same, for holidays;
and a suit of the very best homespun cloth, which he bestowed on
himself for working days. His whole family was a housekeeper something
turned of forty, a niece not twenty, and a man that served him in the
house and in the field, and could saddle a horse, and handle the
pruning hook. The master himself was nigh fifty years of age, of a
hale and strong complexion, lean-bodied and thin-faced, an early
riser, and a lover of hunting. Some say his surname was Quixada, or
Quesada (for authors differ in this particular); however, we may
reasonably conjecture he was called Quixana; though this concerns us
but little, provided we keep strictly to the truth in every point of
this history.

You must know, then, that when our gentleman had nothing to do (which
was almost all the year round), he passed his time in reading books of
knight-errantry, which he did with that application and delight, that
at last he in a manner wholly left off his country sp