“Quite the contrary,” said the bachelor; “for, as stultorum infinitum est numerus, innumerable are those who have relished the said history; but some have brought a charge against the author’s memory, inasmuch as he forgot to say who the thief was who stole Sancho’s Dapple; for it is not stated there, but only to be inferred from what is set down, that he was stolen, and a little farther on we see Sancho mounted on the same ass, without any reappearance of it.  They say, too, that he forgot to state what Sancho did with those hundred crowns that he found in the valise in the Sierra Morena, as he never alludes to them again, and there are many who would be glad to know what he did with them, or what he spent them on, for it is one of the serious omissions of the work.”

“Senor Samson, I am not in a humour now for going into accounts or explanations,” said Sancho; “for there’s a sinking of the stomach come over me, and unless I doctor it with a couple of sups of the old stuff it will put me on the thorn of Santa Lucia.  I have it at home, and my old woman is waiting for me; after dinner I’ll come back, and will answer you and all the world every question you may choose to ask, as well about the loss of the ass as about the spending of the hundred crowns;” and without another word or waiting for a reply he made off home.

Don Quixote begged and entreated the bachelor to stay and do penance with him.  The bachelor accepted the invitation and remained, a couple of young pigeons were added to the ordinary fare, at dinner they talked chivalry, Carrasco fell in with his host’s humour, the banquet came to an end, they took their afternoon sleep, Sancho returned, and their conversation was resumed.

CHAPTER IV.

In which Sancho Panza gives A satisfactory reply to the doubts and questions of the bachelor Samson Carrasco, together with other matters worth knowing and telling

Sancho came back to Don Quixote’s house, and returning to the late subject of conversation, he said, “As to what Senor Samson said, that he would like to know by whom, or how, or when my ass was stolen, I say in reply that the same night we went into the Sierra Morena, flying from the Holy Brotherhood after that unlucky adventure of the galley slaves, and the other of the corpse that was going to Segovia, my master and I ensconced ourselves in a thicket, and there, my master leaning on his lance, and I seated on my Dapple, battered and weary with the late frays we fell asleep as if it had been on four feather mattresses; and I in particular slept so sound, that, whoever he was, he was able to come and prop me up on four stakes, which he put under the four corners of the pack-saddle in such a way that he left me mounted on it, and took away Dapple from under me without my feeling it.”