feel the want of Rocinante on the road, it would be as well to leave him
hung up too."

"And yet, I had rather not have either him or the armour hung up," said
Don Quixote, "that it may not be said, 'for good service a bad return.'"

"Your worship is right," said Sancho; "for, as sensible people hold, 'the
fault of the ass must not be laid on the pack-saddle;' and, as in this
affair the fault is your worship's, punish yourself and don't let your
anger break out against the already battered and bloody armour, or the
meekness of Rocinante, or the tenderness of my feet, trying to make them
travel more than is reasonable."

In converse of this sort the whole of that day went by, as did the four
succeeding ones, without anything occurring to interrupt their journey,
but on the fifth as they entered a village they found a great number of
people at the door of an inn enjoying themselves, as it was a holiday.
Upon Don Quixote's approach a peasant called out, "One of these two
gentlemen who come here, and who don't know the parties, will tell us
what we ought to do about our wager."

"That I will, certainly," said Don Quixote, "and according to the rights
of the case, if I can manage to understand it."

"Well, here it is, worthy sir," said the peasant; "a man of this village
who is so fat that he weighs twenty stone challenged another, a neighbour
of his, who does not weigh more than nine, to run a race. The agreement
was that they were to run a distance of a hundred paces with equal
weights; and when the challenger was asked how the weights were to be
equalised he said that the other, as he weighed nine stone, should put