WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE'S PARTY AT THE INN

Their dainty repast being finished, they saddled at once, and without any

adventure worth mentioning they reached next day the inn, the object of

Sancho Panza's fear and dread; but though he would have rather not

entered it, there was no help for it. The landlady, the landlord, their

daughter, and Maritornes, when they saw Don Quixote and Sancho coming,

went out to welcome them with signs of hearty satisfaction, which Don

Quixote received with dignity and gravity, and bade them make up a better

bed for him than the last time: to which the landlady replied that if he

paid better than he did the last time she would give him one fit for a

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prince. Don Quixote said he would, so they made up a tolerable one for

him in the same garret as before; and he lay down at once, being sorely

shaken and in want of sleep.

No sooner was the door shut upon him than the landlady made at the

barber, and seizing him by the beard, said:

"By my faith you are not going to make a beard of my tail any longer; you

must give me back tail, for it is a shame the way that thing of my

husband's goes tossing about on the floor; I mean the comb that I used to

stick in my good tail."

But for all she tugged at it the barber would not give it up until the

licentiate told him to let her have it, as there was now no further

occasion for that stratagem, because he might declare himself and appear

in his own character, and tell Don Quixote that he had fled to this inn

when those thieves the galley slaves robbed him; and should he ask for

the princess's squire, they could tell him that she had sent him on

before her to give notice to the people of her kingdom that she was

coming, and bringing with her the deliverer of them all. On this the

barber cheerfully restored the tail to the landlady, and at the same time

they returned all the accessories they had borrowed to effect Don

Quixote's deliverance. All the people of the inn were struck with

astonishment at the beauty of Dorothea, and even at the comely figure of

the shepherd Cardenio. The curate made them get ready such fare as there

was in the inn, and the landlord, in hope of better payment, served them

up a tolerably good dinner. All this time Don Quixote was asleep, and

they thought it best not to waken him, as sleeping would now do him more

good than eating.




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