“Ah! yes,” said the Frau von Steufle, “and next market-day we will go with a donkey.” “You will be wise to buy a donkey,” repeated mein herr, “for now I call to mind that Sancho Panza had one whose labors, as he tells us, half-supported his family. I am reminded, also, that the great Cervantes himself rode an ass, as he relates, on a pleasant journey from Equivias with two of his friends. They heard some one clattering up from behind and calling to them to stop, and when he at length overtook them it proved to be a student, who was mounted on an animal of the same sort; he no sooner learned their names than he flung himself off of his ass, says Cervantes, whilst his cloak-bag tumbled on one side, and his portmanteau on the other, and he hastened to express his admiration of the great author of _Don Quixote_.”[22] Just at this point both meerschaum and pipe had given forth their last whiff, and the knitting-work had arrived at the middle of a needle; and as the great matter under discussion, the purchase, was considered as wisely decided in the affirmative, they mutually exchanged a kind “Gute Nacht” with the inevitable “Schlafen Sie wohl!”[23] II. The day after the above conversation, Jans left his home for a little business in a distant city, and several more elapsed before he returned with his purchase. Oh! vain boast when Jans von Steufle declared, “To-morrow I will buy a donkey.” What is a donkey? In one phase of his character, he is the very personification of the stoical philosophy of the ancients; the type of that perfect indifference to all sublunary mutations to which Zeno vainly strives to elevate humankind; patient and enduring under any amount of rain, hail, snow, and sleet that can pour down on him, and any amount of luggage that can be piled upon him; totally, indifferent, in the road he travels, as to its length, direction, hostelries, or hardships, and satisfied, as far as food and sleep are concerned, with the smallest quantity and the poorest quality. This was Jans’ idea of a donkey, but it was not what he got for his money; he got a little gray beast, with a shaggy hide, a large head, long ears, and a temper. It was quite dark when Jackey with a boy astride him arrived from the place of his last abode; so he was quietly taken to the comfortable quarters prepared for him not far from brindle-cow, and particular introductions to him were deferred until the next morning.