y."

On hearing this, Master Pedro stopped ringing, and said, "Don't look into
trifles, Senor Don Quixote, or want to have things up to a pitch of
perfection that is out of reach. Are there not almost every day a
thousand comedies represented all round us full of thousands of
inaccuracies and absurdities, and, for all that, they have a successful
run, and are listened to not only with applause, but with admiration and
all the rest of it? Go on, boy, and don't mind; for so long as I fill my
pouch, no matter if I show as many inaccuracies as there are motes in a
sunbeam."

"True enough," said Don Quixote; and the boy went on: "See what a
numerous and glittering crowd of horsemen issues from the city in pursuit
of the two faithful lovers, what a blowing of trumpets there is, what
sounding of horns, what beating of drums and tabors; I fear me they will
overtake them and bring them back tied to the tail of their own horse,
which would be a dreadful sight."

Don Quixote, however, seeing such a swarm of Moors and hearing such a
din, thought it would be right to aid the fugitives, and standing up he
exclaimed in a loud voice, "Never, while I live, will I permit foul play
to be practised in my presence on such a famous knight and fearless lover
as Don Gaiferos. Halt! ill-born rabble, follow him not nor pursue him, or
ye will have to reckon with me in battle!" and suiting the action to the
word, he drew his sword, and with one bound placed himself close to the
show, and with unexampled rapidity and fury began to shower down blows on
the puppet troop of Moors, knocking over some, decapitating others,
maiming this one and demolishing that; and among many more he delivered
one down stroke which, if Master Pedro had not ducked, made himself
small, and got out of the way, would have sliced off his head as easily
as if it had been made of almond-paste. Master Pedro kept shouting, "Hold
hard! Senor Don Quixote! can't you see they're not real Moors you're
knocking down and killing and destroying, but only little pasteboard
figures! Look--sinner that I am!--how you're wrecking and ruining all
that I'm worth!" But in spite of this, Don Quixote did not leave off
discharging a continuous rain of cuts, slashes, downstrokes, and
backstrokes, and at length, in less than the space of two credos, he
brought the whole show to the ground, with all its fittings and figures
shivered and knocked to pieces, King Marsilio badly wounded, and the
Emper