“What is Dapple?” said the duchess.
“My ass,” said Sancho, “which, not to mention him by that name, I’m accustomed to call Dapple; I begged this lady duenna here to take care of him when I came into the castle, and she got as angry as if I had said she was ugly or old, though it ought to be more natural and proper for duennas to feed asses than to ornament chambers. God bless me! what a spite a gentleman of my village had against these ladies!”
“He must have been some clown,” said Doña Rodriguez the duenna; “for if he had been a gentleman and well-born he would have exalted them higher than the horns of the moon.”
“That will do,” said the duchess; “no more of this; hush, Doña Rodriguez, and let Señor Panza rest easy and leave the treatment of Dapple in my charge, for as he is a treasure of Sancho’s, I’ll put him on the apple of my eye.”
“It will be enough for him to be in the stable,” said Sancho, “for neither he nor I are worthy to rest a moment in the apple of your highness’s eye, and I’d as soon stab myself as consent to it; for though my master says that in civilities it is better to lose by a card too many than a card too few, when it comes to civilities to asses we must mind what we are about and keep within due bounds.”
“Take him to your government, Sancho,” said the duchess, “and there you will be able to make as much of him as you like, and even release him from work and pension him off.”
“Don’t think, señora duchess, that you have said anything absurd,” said Sancho; “I have seen more than two asses go to governments, and for me to take mine with me would be nothing new.”
Sancho’s words made the duchess laugh again and gave her fresh amusement, and dismissing him to sleep she went away to tell the duke the conversation she had had with him, and between them they plotted and arranged to play a joke upon Don Quixote that was to be a rare one and entirely in knight-errantry style, and in that same style they practised several upon him, so much in keeping and so clever that they form the best adventures this great history contains.
