three hundred remaining make an hundred and fifty half-reals, and three-score and fifteen reals; put that with the seven hundred and fifty, and it comes altogether to eight hundred and twenty-five reals. This I will deduct from what I hold of yours, and will return home rich and well pleased, though well whipped. But one must not think to catch trout--I say no more."--"O blessed Sancho! O amiable Sancho!" cried Don Quixote. "How shall Dulcinea and I be bound to serve thee all the days that Heaven shall give us of life! If she recover from her lost state (and it is not possible that she fail to do so), her misfortune will turn to her felicity, and my defeat to the happiest triumph. And hark ye, Sancho! when wilt thou enter upon thy discipline? For if thou hastenest it, I will add further a hundred reals more."--"When?" answered Sancho; "this very night without fail. Do you but order it that we lie in the fields under the open sky, and I will open my flesh." Night arrived, awaited by Don Quixote with the greatest anxiety; and he fancied Phoebus had broken his chariot wheels, which made the day of so unusual a length,--as is always the case with lovers, who never make allowance for the reckoning of their desires. At last they entered amongst some pleasant trees that stood a little out of the road, where, leaving empty the saddle and pannel of Rozinante and Dapple, they stretched themselves upon the green grass, and supped from Sancho's wallet. He, having made himself a heavy and flexible whip of Dapple's headstall and reins, retired about twenty paces from his master, amidst some beeches. Don Quixote, observing him go with readiness and resolution, said, "Have a care, friend; do not hack thyself to pieces. Give one stripe time to await another. Thou shouldst not so hurry in the race that thy breath fails in the midst; go more gently to work, soft and fair goes furthest; I mean, do not give it thyself so sharply that strength fails thee before the desired number is reached. And that you lose not for a card more or less, I will stand at a distance and keep count on my beads of the strokes thou givest thyself. Heaven favor thee as thy good intention deserves."--"Pledges do not hurt a good payer," said Sancho, "I mean to give it to myself in such a way that it hurts without killing me, for in this must lie the essence of this miracle." With that he stripped himself from the waist upwards, and seizing the lash began to lay on; while Don Quixote began to tell the strokes. But by the time Sancho had applied seven or eight lashes, he felt that the jest was a heavy one, and its price very cheap. Whereupon, after a short pause, he told his master that he had been deceived; for such lashes as these were each worth being paid for with a half-real, not a quartillo. "Go on, friend Sancho," said Don Quixote, "take courage, I will double the pay."--"God save us, let it rain stripes in that case," quoth Sancho. But the cunning knave left off