“Egad, master,” said Sancho, “if
we have no other proof of our case than what your
worship puts forward, Mambrino’s helmet is just
as much a basin as this good fellow’s caparison
is a pack-saddle.”
“Do as I bid thee,” said Don Quixote;
“it cannot be that everything in this castle
goes by enchantment.”
Sancho hastened to where the basin was, and brought
it back with him, and when Don Quixote saw it, he
took hold of it and said:
“Your worships may see with what a face this
squire can assert that this is a basin and not the
helmet I told you of; and I swear by the order of
chivalry I profess, that this helmet is the identical
one I took from him, without anything added to or
taken from it.”
“There is no doubt of that,” said Sancho,
“for from the time my master won it until now
he has only fought one battle in it, when he let loose
those unlucky men in chains; and if had not been for
this basin-helmet he would not have come off over
well that time, for there was plenty of stone-throwing
in that affair.”
IN WHICH THE DOUBTFUL QUESTION OF MAMBRINO’S HELMET AND THE PACK-SADDLE
IS FINALLY SETTLED, WITH OTHER ADVENTURES THAT OCCURRED IN TRUTH AND
EARNEST
“What do you think now, gentlemen,” said
the barber, “of what these gentles say, when
they want to make out that this is a helmet?”
“And whoever says the contrary,” said
Don Quixote, “I will let him know he lies if
he is a knight, and if he is a squire that he lies
again a thousand times.”
Our own barber, who was present at all this, and understood
Don Quixote’s humour so thoroughly, took it
into his head to back up his delusion and carry on
the joke for the general amusement; so addressing the
other barber he said:
“Senor barber, or whatever you are, you must
know that I belong to your profession too, and have
had a licence to practise for more than twenty years,
and I know the implements of the barber craft, every
one of them, perfectly well; and I was likewise a
soldier for some time in the days of my youth, and
I know also what a helmet is, and a morion, and a headpiece
with a visor, and other things pertaining to soldiering,
I meant to say to soldiers’ arms; and I say-saving
better opinions and always with submission to sounder
judgments—that this piece we have now before
us, which this worthy gentleman has in his hands,
not only is no barber’s basin, but is as far
from being one as white is from black, and truth from
falsehood; I say, moreover, that this, although it
is a helmet, is not a complete helmet.”
“Certainly not,” said Don Quixote, “for
half of it is wanting, that is to say the beaver.”
“It is quite true,” said the curate, who
saw the object of his friend the barber; and Cardenio,
Don Fernando and his companions agreed with him, and
even the Judge, if his thoughts had not been so full
of Don Luis’s affair, would have helped to carry
on the joke; but he was so taken up with the serious
matters he had on his mind that he paid little or no
attention to these facetious proceedings.
