Don Quixote. Verily, had my peerless Dulcinea herself bestraddled a spinning-wheel in ungraceful posture and unseemly garb, I, her sworn knight, should have deemed her the victim of diabolic enchantment. Why, even the afflicted duenna, with her fair cheeks beard-begrown by enchantment, she whom Sancho called the Countess Three-Skirts, would not—save under dire compulsion—have donned the modern divided skirt and mounted the man-saddled steed of steel. Art sure, Sir Sage, that after all it is not enchantment that hath so far unsexed your afflicted damosels and duennas, and that 'tis not my duty in their defence to lay lance in rest——
Mr. Punch. Nay, sweet soul of chivalry, Mayfair is not La Mancha, and you may safely leave its fair denizens to the defence—or, if need be, chastening—of that knightly lance of to-day, my own invincible and unerring bâton. But, verily, 'twere a punishment not ill-deserved by certain of our mannish maidens and male-mimicking matrons did Malambruno clap bristly scrubbing-brush hairs upon them as upon your distressful Duenna of Toledo.
Don Quixote. Verily, Sir Sage, we are mounting skyward, dawn-ward, New Year-ward in a wondrous manner! Thy spotted steed is surely Pegasus itself, for Skyworld is full of myriad voices of wisdom and melody.
Mr. Punch. But my Auto-Motor, comparable only with the Sun God's glowing chariot, shall outsoar and outshine even our present empyrean flight.
Voice (suddenly sounding behind them). Wuff! Wuff! Wuff!
Don Quixote (looking round). Saints preserve us! What is this new marvellous enchantment? Hath Sirius itself broken loose?—doth the Dog Star follow our trail?
Mr. Punch. What seest thou, Sir Knight?
Don Quixote (with awe). I behold, as it were, an aerial fire-wheeled car, shapen in the guise of a Titanic Tome, coruscating comet-like in its career, whereon is mounted—yes, verily—a Dog—a Dog of Dogs! What, Sir Punch, may be this portent?
Mr. Punch. Why, my dear Don Quixote—who seems scarcely the Quixote Quicksight of the nursery rhyme—what should it be but Tobias himself with that promised specimen of my Auroral Autocar, or Mirific Motor-Carriage, self-impelled, self-steered, self-lighted, self-heated, the most peerless outcome of the true Progressive spirit, the true acme of sure and speedy Progress; in other words, dear Don, and at your entire service, my
