ut a governor they
are asking to whip himself; just as if it was 'drink with cherries.' Let
them learn, plague take them, the right way to ask, and beg, and behave
themselves; for all times are not alike, nor are people always in good
humour. I'm now ready to burst with grief at seeing my green coat torn,
and they come to ask me to whip myself of my own free will, I having as
little fancy for it as for turning cacique."

"Well then, the fact is, friend Sancho," said the duke, "that unless you
become softer than a ripe fig, you shall not get hold of the government.
It would be a nice thing for me to send my islanders a cruel governor
with flinty bowels, who won't yield to the tears of afflicted damsels or
to the prayers of wise, magisterial, ancient enchanters and sages. In
short, Sancho, either you must be whipped by yourself, or they must whip
you, or you shan't be governor."

"Senor," said Sancho, "won't two days' grace be given me in which to
consider what is best for me?"

"No, certainly not," said Merlin; "here, this minute, and on the spot,
the matter must be settled; either Dulcinea will return to the cave of
Montesinos and to her former condition of peasant wench, or else in her
present form shall be carried to the Elysian fields, where she will
remain waiting until the number of stripes is completed."

"Now then, Sancho!" said the duchess, "show courage, and gratitude for
your master Don Quixote's bread that you have eaten; we are all bound to
oblige and please him for his benevolent disposition and lofty chivalry.
Consent to this whipping, my son; to the devil with the devil, and leave
fear to milksops, for 'a stout heart breaks bad luck,' as you very well
know."

To this Sancho replied with an irrelevant remark, which, addressing
Merlin, he made to him, "Will your worship tell me, Senor Merlin--when
that courier devil came up he gave my master a message from Senor
Montesinos, charging him to wait for him here, as he was coming to
arrange how the lady Dona Dulcinea del Toboso was to be disenchanted; but
up to the present we have not seen Montesinos, nor anything like him."

To which Merlin made answer, "The devil, Sancho, is a blockhead and a
great scoundrel; I sent him to look for your master, but not with a
message from Montesinos but from myself; for Montesinos is in his cave
expecting, or more properly speaking, waiting for his disenchantment; for
there's the tail to be skinned yet for him; if he owe