him where it may be best for him, and where he may be able to bestow most
favours upon me."

"You speak like a man of sense," said the curate, "and you will be acting
like a good Christian; but what must now be done is to take steps to coax
your master out of that useless penance you say he is performing; and we
had best turn into this inn to consider what plan to adopt, and also to
dine, for it is now time."

Sancho said they might go in, but that he would wait there outside, and
that he would tell them afterwards the reason why he was unwilling, and
why it did not suit him to enter it; but he begged them to bring him out
something to eat, and to let it be hot, and also to bring barley for
Rocinante. They left him and went in, and presently the barber brought
him out something to eat. By-and-by, after they had between them
carefully thought over what they should do to carry out their object, the
curate hit upon an idea very well adapted to humour Don Quixote, and
effect their purpose; and his notion, which he explained to the barber,
was that he himself should assume the disguise of a wandering damsel,
while the other should try as best he could to pass for a squire, and
that they should thus proceed to where Don Quixote was, and he,
pretending to be an aggrieved and distressed damsel, should ask a favour
of him, which as a valiant knight-errant he could not refuse to grant;
and the favour he meant to ask him was that he should accompany her
whither she would conduct him, in order to redress a wrong which a wicked
knight had done her, while at the same time she should entreat him not to
require her to remove her mask, nor ask her any question touching her
circumstances until he had righted her with the wicked knight. And he had
no doubt that Don Quixote would comply with any request made in these
terms, and that in this way they might remove him and take him to his own
village, where they would endeavour to find out if his extraordinary
madness admitted of any kind of remedy.

CHAPTER XXVII.

OF HOW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER PROCEEDED WITH THEIR SCHEME; TOGETHER
WITH OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF RECORD IN THIS GREAT HISTORY

The curate's plan did not seem a bad one to the barber, but on the
contrary so good that they immediately set about putting it in execution.
They begged a petticoat and hood of the landlady, leaving her in pledge a
new cassock of the curate's; and the barber made a beard out of a
grey-brow