ther the treasure
over which there had been so much fighting was a pack-saddle or a
caparison; but after he had taken the votes of those who knew Don
Quixote, he said aloud, "The fact is, my good fellow, that I am tired
collecting such a number of opinions, for I find that there is not one of
whom I ask what I desire to know, who does not tell me that it is absurd
to say that this is the pack-saddle of an ass, and not the caparison of a
horse, nay, of a thoroughbred horse; so you must submit, for, in spite of
you and your ass, this is a caparison and no pack-saddle, and you have
stated and proved your case very badly."

"May I never share heaven," said the poor barber, "if your worships are
not all mistaken; and may my soul appear before God as that appears to me
a pack-saddle and not a caparison; but, 'laws go,'-I say no more; and
indeed I am not drunk, for I am fasting, except it be from sin."

The simple talk of the barber did not afford less amusement than the
absurdities of Don Quixote, who now observed:

"There is no more to be done now than for each to take what belongs to
him, and to whom God has given it, may St. Peter add his blessing."

But said one of the four servants, "Unless, indeed, this is a deliberate
joke, I cannot bring myself to believe that men so intelligent as those
present are, or seem to be, can venture to declare and assert that this
is not a basin, and that not a pack-saddle; but as I perceive that they
do assert and declare it, I can only come to the conclusion that there is
some mystery in this persistence in what is so opposed to the evidence of
experience and truth itself; for I swear by"--and here he rapped out a
round oath-"all the people in the world will not make me believe that
this is not a barber's basin and that a jackass's pack-saddle."

"It might easily be a she-ass's," observed the curate.

"It is all the same," said the servant; "that is not the point; but
whether it is or is not a pack-saddle, as your worships say."

On hearing this one of the newly arrived officers of the Brotherhood, who
had been listening to the dispute and controversy, unable to restrain his
anger and impatience, exclaimed, "It is a pack-saddle as sure as my
father is my father, and whoever has said or will say anything else must
be drunk."

"You lie like a rascally clown," returned Don Quixote; and lifting his
pike, which he had never let out of his hand, he delivered such a blow at
his head that