DON QUIXOTE

Back Forward Menu

"If I remember rightly," said Sancho, "it must be over twenty years,
three days more or less."

Don Quixote gave himself a great slap on the forehead and began to laugh
heartily, and said he, "Why, I have not been wandering, either in the
Sierra Morena or in the whole course of our sallies, but barely two
months, and thou sayest, Sancho, that it is twenty years since I promised
thee the island. I believe now thou wouldst have all the money thou hast
of mine go in thy wages. If so, and if that be thy pleasure, I give it to
thee now, once and for all, and much good may it do thee, for so long as
I see myself rid of such a good-for-nothing squire I'll be glad to be
left a pauper without a rap. But tell me, thou perverter of the squirely
rules of knight-errantry, where hast thou ever seen or read that any
knight-errant's squire made terms with his lord, 'you must give me so
much a month for serving you'? Plunge, scoundrel, rogue, monster--for
such I take thee to be--plunge, I say, into the mare magnum of their
histories; and if thou shalt find that any squire ever said or thought