Don Quixote could hardly bear to wait for the marvels the man with the lances and halberds had promised. He went to find him in the stable and asked him to tell now the story he had said he would tell later. When the man said he should see to his animal first and then sit down to tell it, Don Quixote winnowed the barley and cleaned out the manger for him with his own hands.
Moved by such humility, the man sat on a stone bench and began. The cousin, the page, Sancho and the innkeeper made up his audience. In a village four and a half leagues from here, he said, an alderman had once lost his donkey, thanks to a trick played by his servant girl.
About two weeks later another alderman of the same village told him he had seen the donkey in the hills. The two went up together, but the donkey was nowhere to be seen. Then the one who had seen it had an idea. He could bray like a donkey wonderfully well, he said, so if they split up and went round the hills braying, the donkey would hear and answer.