“Your worship would make a better preacher than
knight-errant,” said Sancho.
“Knights-errant knew and ought to know everything,
Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “for there
were knights-errant in former times as well qualified
to deliver a sermon or discourse in the middle of an
encampment, as if they had graduated in the University
of Paris; whereby we may see that the lance has never
blunted the pen, nor the pen the lance.”
“Well, be it as your worship says,” replied
Sancho; “let us be off now and find some place
of shelter for the night, and God grant it may be
somewhere where there are no blankets, nor blanketeers,
nor phantoms, nor enchanted Moors; for if there are,
may the devil take the whole concern.”
“Ask that of God, my son,” said Don Quixote;
“and do thou lead on where thou wilt, for this
time I leave our lodging to thy choice; but reach me
here thy hand, and feel with thy finger, and find out
how many of my teeth and grinders are missing from
this right side of the upper jaw, for it is there
I feel the pain.”
Sancho put in his fingers, and feeling about asked
him, “How many grinders used your worship have
on this side?”
“Four,” replied Don Quixote, “besides
the back-tooth, all whole and quite sound.”
“Mind what you are saying, senor.”
“I say four, if not five,” answered Don
Quixote, “for never in my life have I had tooth
or grinder drawn, nor has any fallen out or been destroyed
by any decay or rheum.”
“Well, then,” said Sancho, “in this
lower side your worship has no more than two grinders
and a half, and in the upper neither a half nor any
at all, for it is all as smooth as the palm of my
hand.”
“Luckless that I am!” said Don Quixote,
hearing the sad news his squire gave him; “I
had rather they despoiled me of an arm, so it were
not the sword-arm; for I tell thee, Sancho, a mouth
without teeth is like a mill without a millstone,
and a tooth is much more to be prized than a diamond;
but we who profess the austere order of chivalry are
liable to all this. Mount, friend, and lead the
way, and I will follow thee at whatever pace thou
wilt.”
Sancho did as he bade him, and proceeded in the direction
in which he thought he might find refuge without quitting
the high road, which was there very much frequented.
As they went along, then, at a slow pace—for
the pain in Don Quixote’s jaws kept him uneasy
and ill-disposed for speed—Sancho thought
it well to amuse and divert him by talk of some kind,
and among the things he said to him was that which
will be told in the following chapter.
OF THE SHREWD DISCOURSE WHICH SANCHO HELD WITH HIS MASTER, AND OF THE
ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL HIM WITH A DEAD BODY, TOGETHER WITH OTHER NOTABLE
OCCURRENCES
“It seems to me, senor, that all these mishaps
that have befallen us of late have been without any
doubt a punishment for the offence committed by your
worship against the order of chivalry in not keeping
the oath you made not to eat bread off a tablecloth
or embrace the queen, and all the rest of it that
your worship swore to observe until you had taken that
helmet of Malandrino’s, or whatever the Moor
is called, for I do not very well remember.”
