have no hack, but I have an ass that is worth my master's horse twice
over; God send me a bad Easter, and that the next one I am to see, if I
would swap, even if I got four bushels of barley to boot. You will laugh
at the value I put on my Dapple--for dapple is the colour of my beast. As
to greyhounds, I can't want for them, for there are enough and to spare
in my town; and, moreover, there is more pleasure in sport when it is at
other people's expense."

"In truth and earnest, sir squire," said he of the Grove, "I have made up
my mind and determined to have done with these drunken vagaries of these
knights, and go back to my village, and bring up my children; for I have
three, like three Oriental pearls."

"I have two," said Sancho, "that might be presented before the Pope
himself, especially a girl whom I am breeding up for a countess, please
God, though in spite of her mother."

"And how old is this lady that is being bred up for a countess?" asked he
of the Grove.

"Fifteen, a couple of years more or less," answered Sancho; "but she is
as tall as a lance, and as fresh as an April morning, and as strong as a
porter."

"Those are gifts to fit her to be not only a countess but a nymph of the
greenwood," said he of the Grove; "whoreson strumpet! what pith the rogue
must have!"

To which Sancho made answer, somewhat sulkily, "She's no strumpet, nor
was her mother, nor will either of them be, please God, while I live;