and that's higher than alcalde. Only come
and see! Let them make light of me and abuse me; 'they'll come for wool
and go back shorn;' 'whom God loves, his house is known to Him;' 'the
silly sayings of the rich pass for saws in the world;' and as I'll be
rich, being a governor, and at the same time generous, as I mean to be,
no fault will be seen in me. 'Only make yourself honey and the flies will
suck you;' 'as much as thou hast so much art thou worth,' as my
grandmother used to say; and 'thou canst have no revenge of a man of
substance.'"

"Oh, God's curse upon thee, Sancho!" here exclaimed Don Quixote; "sixty
thousand devils fly away with thee and thy proverbs! For the last hour
thou hast been stringing them together and inflicting the pangs of
torture on me with every one of them. Those proverbs will bring thee to
the gallows one day, I promise thee; thy subjects will take the
government from thee, or there will be revolts among them. Tell me, where
dost thou pick them up, thou booby? How dost thou apply them, thou
blockhead? For with me, to utter one and make it apply properly, I have
to sweat and labour as if I were digging."

"By God, master mine," said Sancho, "your worship is making a fuss about
very little. Why the devil should you be vexed if I make use of what is
my own? And I have got nothing else, nor any other stock in trade except
proverbs and more proverbs; and here are three just this instant come
into my head, pat to the purpose and like pears in a basket; but I won't
repeat them, for 'sage silence is called Sancho.'"

"That, Sancho, thou art not," said Don Quixote; "for not only art thou
not sage silence, but thou art pestilent prate and perversity; still I
would like to know what three proverbs have just now come into thy
memory, for I have been turning over mine own--and it is a good one--and
none occurs to me."

"What can be better," said Sancho, "than 'never put thy thumbs between
two back teeth;' and 'to "get out of my house" and "what do you want with
my wife?" there is no answer;' and 'whether the pitcher hits the stove,
or the stove the pitcher, it's a bad business for the pitcher;' all which
fit to a hair? For no one should quarrel with his governor, or him in
authority over him, because he will come off the worst, as he does who
puts his finger between two back and if they are not back teeth it makes
no difference, so long as they are teeth; and to whatever the governor
may say there's n