his preaching passenger, what a fiddle-faddle have we here?  There is too long a lecture by half:  sell him if thou wilt; if thou won’t, don’t let the man lose more time.  I hate a gibble-gabble and a rimble-ramble talk.  I am for a man of brevity.  I will, for your sake, replied the holder-forth; but then he shall give me three livres, French money, for each pick and choose.  It is a woundy price, cried Panurge; in our country I could have five, nay six, for the money; see that you do not overreach me, master.  You are not the first man whom I have known to have fallen, even sometimes to the endangering, if not breaking, of his own neck, for endeavouring to rise all at once.  A murrain seize thee for a blockheaded booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by the worthy vow of Our Lady of Charroux, the worst in this flock is four times better than those which the Coraxians in Tuditania, a country of Spain, used to sell for a gold talent each; and how much dost thou think, thou Hibernian fool, that a talent of gold was worth?  Sweet sir, you fall into a passion, I see, returned Panurge; well, hold, here is your money.  Panurge, having paid his money, chose him out of all the flock a fine topping ram; and as he was hauling it along, crying out and bleating, all the rest, hearing and bleating in concert, stared to see whither their brother-ram should be carried.  In the meanwhile the drover was saying to his shepherds:  Ah! how well the knave could choose him out a ram; the whoreson has skill in cattle.  On my honest word, I reserved that very piece of flesh for the Lord of Cancale, well knowing his disposition; for the good man is naturally overjoyed when he holds a good-sized handsome shoulder of mutton, instead of a left-handed racket, in one hand, with a good sharp carver in the other.  God wot, how he belabours himself then.

Chapter 4.VIII.

How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned in the sea.

On a sudden, you would wonder how the thing was so soon done—­for my part I cannot tell you, for I had not leisure to mind it—­our friend Panurge, without any further tittle-tattle, throws you his ram overboard into the middle of the sea, bleating and making a sad noise.  Upon this all the other sheep in the ship, crying and bleating in the same tone, made all the haste they could to leap nimbly into the sea, one after another; and great was the throng who should leap in first after their leader.  It was impossible to hinder them; for you know that it is the nature of sheep always to follow the first wheresoever it goes; which makes Aristotle, lib. 9.  De.  Hist.  Animal., mark them for the most silly and foolish animals in the world.  Dingdong, at his wits’ end, and stark staring mad, as a man who saw his sheep destroy and drown themselves before his face, strove to hinder and keep them back with might and main; but all in vain:  they all one after t’other frisked and jumped