rself,
as I said before, out of your own hand."

"O body o' me!" said Sancho, "but your worship is very much out in that
reckoning; for when it comes to the promise of the island we must count
from the day your worship promised it to me to this present hour we are
at now."

"Well, how long is it, Sancho, since I promised it to you?" said Don
Quixote.

"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
what thou hast said now, I will let thee nail it on my forehead, and give
me, over and above, four sound slaps in the face. Turn the rein, or the
halter, of thy Dapple, and begone home; for one single step further thou
shalt not make in my company. O bread thanklessly received! O promises
ill-bestowed! O man more beast than human being! Now, when I was about to
raise thee to such a position, that, in spite of thy wife, they would
call thee 'my lord,' thou art leaving me? Thou art going now when I had a
firm and fixed intention of making thee lord of the best island in the
world? Well, as thou thyself hast said before now, honey is not for the
mouth of the ass. Ass thou art, ass thou wilt be, and ass thou wilt end
when the course of thy life is run; for I know it will come to its close
before thou dost perceive or discern that thou art a beast."

Sancho regarded Don Quixote earnestly while he was giving him this
rating, and was so touched by remorse that the tears came to his eyes,
and in a piteo