ldst thou
rather have it indoors or in the open air?"

"Egad, senor," said Sancho, "for what I'm going to give myself, it comes
all the same to me whether it is in a house or in the fields; still I'd
like it to be among trees; for I think they are company for me and help
me to bear my pain wonderfully."

"And yet it must not be, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote; "but, to
enable thee to recover strength, we must keep it for our own village; for
at the latest we shall get there the day after tomorrow."

Sancho said he might do as he pleased; but that for his own part he would
like to finish off the business quickly before his blood cooled and while
he had an appetite, because "in delay there is apt to be danger" very
often, and "praying to God and plying the hammer," and "one take was
better than two I'll give thee's," and "a sparrow in the hand than a
vulture on the wing."

"For God's sake, Sancho, no more proverbs!" exclaimed Don Quixote; "it
seems to me thou art becoming sicut erat again; speak in a plain, simple,
straight-forward way, as I have often told thee, and thou wilt find the
good of it."

"I don't know what bad luck it is of mine," argument to my mind; however,
I mean to mend said Sancho, "but I can't utter a word without a proverb
that is not as good as an argument to my mind; however, I mean to mend if
I can;" and so for the present the conversation ended.

CHAPTER LXXII.

OF HOW DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO REACHED THEIR VILLAGE

All that day Don Quixote and Sancho remained in the village and inn
waiting for night, the one to finish off his task of scourging in the
open country, the other to see it accomplished, for therein lay the
accomplishment of his wishes. Meanwhile there arrived at the hostelry a
traveller on horseback with three or four servants, one of whom said to
him who appeared to be the master, "Here, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, your
worship may take your siesta to-day; the quarters seem clean and cool."

When he heard this Don Quixote said to Sancho, "Look here, Sancho; on
turning over the leaves of that book of the Second Part of my history I
think I came casually upon this name of Don Alvaro Tarfe."

"Very likely," said Sancho; "we had better let him dismount, and
by-and-by we can ask about it."

The gentleman dismounted, and the landlady gave him a room on the ground
floor opposite Don Quixote's and adorned with painted serge hangings of
the same sort. The newly arrived gentl