earnest, it
will be as well to saddle Rocinante again in order that he may supply the
want of Dapple, because it will save me time in going and returning: for
if I go on foot I don't know when I shall get there or when I shall get
back, as I am, in truth, a bad walker."

"I declare, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "it shall be as thou wilt, for
thy plan does not seem to me a bad one, and three days hence thou wilt
depart, for I wish thee to observe in the meantime what I do and say for
her sake, that thou mayest be able to tell it."

"But what more have I to see besides what I have seen?" said Sancho.

"Much thou knowest about it!" said Don Quixote. "I have now got to tear
up my garments, to scatter about my armour, knock my head against these
rocks, and more of the same sort of thing, which thou must witness."

"For the love of God," said Sancho, "be careful, your worship, how you
give yourself those knocks on the head, for you may come across such a
rock, and in such a way, that the very first may put an end to the whole
contrivance of this penance; and I should think, if indeed knocks on the
head seem necessary to you, and this business cannot be done without
them, you might be content--as the whole thing is feigned, and
counterfeit, and in joke--you might be content, I say, with giving them
to yourself in the water, or against something soft, like cotton; and
leave it all to me; for I'll tell my lady that your worship knocked your
head against a point of rock harder than a diamond."

"I thank thee for thy good intentions, friend Sancho," answered Don
Quixote, "but I would have thee know that all these things I am doing are
not in joke, but very much in earnest, for anything else would be a
transgression of the ordinances of chivalry, which forbid us to tell any
lie whatever under the penalties due to apostasy; and to do one thing
instead of another is just the same as lying; so my knocks on the head
must be real, solid, and valid, without anything sophisticated or
fanciful about them, and it will be needful to leave me some lint to
dress my wounds, since fortune has compelled us to do without the balsam
we lost."

"It was worse losing the ass," replied Sancho, "for with him lint and all
were lost; but I beg of your worship not to remind me again of that
accursed liquor, for my soul, not to say my stomach, turns at hearing the
very name of it; and I beg of you, too, to reckon as past the three days
you allowed m