"Near the bookseller, in the next house," continued the Devil, "you may perceive a timid and respectful lover just awaking. He loves one of the most sprightly of widows; and was dreaming, but this moment, that, beside her in the covert of a dusky wood, whose shade lent courage to his modest spirit, he was so tender,--so gallant in his speech, that his fair mistress could not help exclaiming: 'Ah! you are becoming absolutely dangerous! If I were not steeled against the flattery of men, I should be lost. But you are all deceivers! I never trust to words;--actions alone can win me,'--'And what actions, madam, do you ask of me?' interrupted the gentle swain: 'must I, to prove the excess of my passion, undertake the twelve labours of Hercules?' 'Lord! no, Nicaise,' replied the lady, 'much less would content me.' Thereupon--he awoke."
"Prythee, tell me," said the Student, "why yonder man, in that dark-coloured bed, tosses about so furiously." "He," replied the Cripple, "is a talented licentiate; and his present agitation arises from a dream, in which he is disputing in favour of the immortality of the soul, with a little doctor of medicine, who is as good a catholic as he is a physician. In the same house, over the licentiate, lodges a gentleman of Estramadura, named Don Balthazar Fanfarronico, who has come post-haste to court, to demand a reward for having valiantly slain a Portuguese, by a musket-shot, in ambush. And of what do you imagine he is dreaming? Nothing less than that he is appointed to the government of Antequera, at which he is very naturally dissatisfied: he thinks he deserves a viceroyalty at least.
[Illustration: man on horseback shot by another, in ambush]
"In a furnished house close by, I discover two distinguished personages, whose dreams are far from pleasant. One of them is governor of a fortress, where he is now sustaining a fancied siege, and which, after a faint resistance, he is on the point of surrendering, with himself and garrison, at discretion. The other is the bishop of Murcia, whom his majesty has charged with the task of eulogising a deceased princess, whose funeral takes place in a day or two. He has, in imagination, just ascended the pulpit; and there has his imagination left him, for he has stopped short in the exordium of his discourse." "It is not impossible," said Don Cleophas, "that this misfortune may really befall the worthy prelate." "No, truly," replied the Devil; "for it is not very long since his grace found himself in a similar predicament on a like occasion.