his master, and concluded that the good temper the latter displayed arose
from the happiness he felt at having seen his lady Dulcinea, even
enchanted as she was; because otherwise the words and language Sancho had
addressed to him deserved a thrashing; for indeed he seemed to him to
have been rather impudent to his master, to whom he now observed, "I,
Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha, look upon the time I have spent in
travelling with your worship as very well employed, for I have gained
four things in the course of it; the first is that I have made your
acquaintance, which I consider great good fortune; the second, that I
have learned what the cave of Montesinos contains, together with the
transformations of Guadiana and of the lakes of Ruidera; which will be of
use to me for the Spanish Ovid that I have in hand; the third, to have
discovered the antiquity of cards, that they were in use at least in the
time of Charlemagne, as may be inferred from the words you say Durandarte
uttered when, at the end of that long spell while Montesinos was talking
to him, he woke up and said, 'Patience and shuffle.' This phrase and
expression he could not have learned while he was enchanted, but only
before he had become so, in France, and in the time of the aforesaid
emperor Charlemagne. And this demonstration is just the thing for me for
that other book I am writing, the 'Supplement to Polydore Vergil on the
Invention of Antiquities;' for I believe he never thought of inserting
that of cards in his book, as I mean to do in mine, and it will be a
matter of great importance, particularly when I can cite so grave and
veracious an authority as Senor Durandarte. And the fourth thing is, that
I have ascertained the source of the river Guadiana, heretofore unknown
to mankind."

"You are right," said Don Quixote; "but I should like to know, if by
God's favour they grant you a licence to print those books of yours-which
I doubt--to whom do you mean dedicate them?"