ffront
that could be offered me;" and addressing Sancho, she said to him, "You
must know, friend Sancho, that Dona Rodriguez is very youthful, and that
she wears that hood more for authority and custom sake than because of
her years."

"May all the rest of mine be unlucky," said Sancho, "if I meant it that
way; I only spoke because the affection I have for my ass is so great,
and I thought I could not commend him to a more kind-hearted person than
the lady Dona Rodriguez."

Don Quixote, who was listening, said to him, "Is this proper conversation
for the place, Sancho?"

"Senor," replied Sancho, "every one must mention what he wants wherever
he may be; I thought of Dapple here, and I spoke of him here; if I had
thought of him in the stable I would have spoken there."

On which the duke observed, "Sancho is quite right, and there is no
reason at all to find fault with him; Dapple shall be fed to his heart's
content, and Sancho may rest easy, for he shall be treated like himself."

While this conversation, amusing to all except Don Quixote, was
proceeding, they ascended the staircase and ushered Don Quixote into a
chamber hung with rich cloth of gold and brocade; six damsels relieved
him of his armour and waited on him like pages, all of them prepared and
instructed by the duke and duchess as to what they were to do, and how
they were to treat Don Quixote, so that he might see and believe they
were treating him like a knight-errant. When his armour was removed,
there stood Don Quixote in his tight-fitting breeches and chamois
doublet, lean, lanky, and long, with cheeks that seemed to be kissing
each other inside; such a figure, that if the damsels waiting on him had
not taken care to check their merriment (which was one of the particular
directions their master and mistress had given them), they would have
burst with laughter. They asked him to let himself be stripped that they
might put a shirt on him, but he would not on any account, saying that
modesty became knights-errant just as much as valour. However, he said
they might give the shirt to Sancho; and shutting himself in with him in
a room where there was a sumptuous bed, he undressed and put on the
shirt; and then, finding himself alone with Sancho, he said to him, "Tell
me, thou new-fledged buffoon and old booby, dost thou think it right to
offend and insult a duenna so deserving of reverence and respect as that
one just now? Was that a time to bethink thee o