with laughter when she saw Sancho's rage and
heard his words; but it was no pleasure to Don Quixote to see him in such
a sorry trim, with the dingy towel about him, and the hangers-on of the
kitchen all round him; so making a low bow to the duke and duchess, as if
to ask their permission to speak, he addressed the rout in a dignified
tone: "Holloa, gentlemen! you let that youth alone, and go back to where
you came from, or anywhere else if you like; my squire is as clean as any
other person, and those troughs are as bad as narrow thin-necked jars to
him; take my advice and leave him alone, for neither he nor I understand
joking."

Sancho took the word out of his mouth and went on, "Nay, let them come
and try their jokes on the country bumpkin, for it's about as likely I'll
stand them as that it's now midnight! Let them bring me a comb here, or
what they please, and curry this beard of mine, and if they get anything
out of it that offends against cleanliness, let them clip me to the
skin."

Upon this, the duchess, laughing all the while, said, "Sancho Panza is
right, and always will be in all he says; he is clean, and, as he says
himself, he does not require to be washed; and if our ways do not please
him, he is free to choose. Besides, you promoters of cleanliness have
been excessively careless and thoughtless, I don't know if I ought not to
say audacious, to bring troughs and wooden utensils and kitchen
dishclouts, instead of basins and jugs of pure gold and towels of
holland, to such a person and such a beard; but, after all, you are
ill-conditioned and ill-bred, and spiteful as you are, you cannot help
showing the grudge you have against the squires of knights-errant."

The impudent servitors, and even the seneschal who came with them, took
the duchess to be speaking in earnest, so they removed the
straining-cloth from Sancho's neck, and with something like shame and
confusion of face went off all of them and left him; whereupon he, seeing
himself safe out of that extreme danger, as it seemed to him, ran and
fell on his knees before the duchess, saying, "From great ladies great
favours may be looked for; this which your grace has done me today cannot
be requited with less than wishing I was dubbed a knight-errant, to
devote myself all the days of my life to the service of so exalted a
lady. I am a labouring man, my name is Sancho Panza, I am married, I have
children, and I am serving as a squire; if in any one of t