“By the life of my father,” said Sancho, when he heard the letter, “it is the loftiest thing I ever heard. Body of me! how your worship says everything as you like in it! And how well you fit in ‘The Knight of the Rueful Countenance’ into the signature. I declare your worship is indeed the very devil, and there is nothing you don’t know.”

“Everything is needed for the calling I follow,” said Don Quixote.

“Now then,” said Sancho, “let your worship put the order for the three ass-colts on the other side, and sign it very plainly, that they may recognise it at first sight.”

“With all my heart,” said Don Quixote, and as he had written it he read it to this effect: