Berg. Keep it and listen.  As it is an easy thing to extend and improve our inventions, my master, seeing how well I imitated a Neapolitan courser, made me housings of gilt leather, and a little saddle, which he fitted on my back; he put on it a little figure of a man, with lance in hand, and taught me to run straight at a ring fixed between two stakes.  As soon as I was perfect in that performance, my master announced that on that day the wise dog would run at the ring, and exhibit other new and incomparable feats, which, indeed, I drew from my own invention, not to give my master the lie.  We next marched to Montilla, a town belonging to the famous and great christian, Marquis of Priego, head of the house of Aguilar and Montilla.  My master was quartered, at his own request, in a hospital; he made his usual proclamation, and as my great fame had already reached the town, the court-yard was filled with spectators in less than an hour.  My master rejoiced to see such a plenteous harvest, and resolved to show himself that day a first-rate conjuror.  The entertainment began with my leaping through a hoop.  He had a willow switch in his hand, and when he lowered it, that was a signal for me to leap; and when he kept it raised, I was not to budge.

On that day (for ever memorable in my life) he began by saying, “Come, my friend, jump for that juvenile old gentleman, you know, who blacks his beard; or, if you won’t, jump for the pomp and grandeur of Donna Pimpinela de Plafagonia, who was the fellow servant of the Galician kitchen wench at Valdeastillas.  Don’t you like that, my boy?  Then jump for the bachelor Pasillas, who signs himself licentiate without having any degree.  How lazy you are!  Why don’t you jump?  Oh!  I understand!  I am up to your roguery!  Jump, then, for the wine of Esquivias, a match for that of Ciudad Real, St. Martin, and Rivadavia.”  He lowered the switch, and I jumped in accordance with the signal.  Then, addressing the audience, “Do not imagine, worshipful senate,” he said, “that it is any laughing matter what this dog knows.  I have taught him four-and-twenty performances, the least of which is worth going thirty leagues to see.  He can dance the zaraband and the chacona better than their inventor; he tosses off a pint of wine without spilling a drop; he intones a sol, fa, mi, re, as well as any sacristan.  All these things, and many others which remain to be told, your worships shall witness during the time the company remains here.  At present, our wise one will give another jump, and then we will enter upon the main business.”

Having inflamed the curiosity of the audience, or senate, as he called them, with this harangue, he turned to me and said, “Come now, my lad, and go through all your jumps with your usual grace and agility; but this time it shall be for the sake of the famous witch who is said to belong to this place.”  The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the matron of the hospital, an old woman, who seemed upwards of