o learned, wise, sensible physicians,
them I will reverence and honor as divine persons. Once more I say,
let Pedro Recio get out this, or I'll take this chair I am sitting on
and break it over his head. And if they call me to account for it,
I'll clear myself by saying I served God in killing a bad doctor--a
general executioner. And now give me something to eat, or else take
your government; for a trade that does not feed its master is not
worth two beans...."

* * * * *

Sancho, fool, boor, and clown as he was, held his own against them
all, saying to those round him, and to Doctor Pedro Recio, who as soon
as the private business of the duke's letter was disposed of had
returned to the room:--"Now I see plainly enough that judges and
governors ought to be and must be made of brass, not to feel the
importunities of the applicants that at all times and all seasons
insist on being heard and having their business dispatched, and their
own affairs and no others attended to, come what may; and if the poor
judge does not hear them and settle the matter,--either because he
cannot or because that is not the time set apart for hearing
them,--forthwith they abuse him, run him down, and gnaw at his bones,
and even pick holes in his pedigree. You silly stupid applicant, don't
be in a hurry; wait for the proper time and season for doing business;
don't come at dinner-hour or at bedtime: for judges are only flesh and
blood, and must give to Nature what she naturally demands of them; all
except myself, for in my case I give her nothing to eat, thanks to
Senor Doctor Pedro Recio Tirteafuera here, who would have me die of
hunger, and declares that death to be life; and the same sort of life
may God give him and all his kind--I mean the bad doctors; for the
good ones deserve palms and laurels."

All who knew Sancho Panza were astonished to hear him speak so
elegantly, and did not know what to attribute it to, unless it were
that office and grave responsibility either smarten or stupefy men's
wits. At last Doctor Pedro Recio Aguero of Tirteafuera promised to let
him have supper that night, though it might be in contravention of all
the aphorisms of Hippocrates. With this the governor was satisfied,
and looked forward to the approach of night and supper-time with great
anxiety; and though time to his mind stood still and made no progress,
nevertheless the hour he so longed for came, and they gave him a be