er of the pair, who
is one Diego de la Llana, a gentleman and an old Christian as much as
you please.

"I have visited the market-places, as your worship advises me, and
yesterday I found a stall-keeper selling new hazel-nuts, and proved
her to have mixed a bushel of old empty rotten nuts with a bushel of
new; I confiscated the whole for the children of the charity school,
who will know how to distinguish them well enough, and I sentenced her
not to come into the market-place for a fortnight: they told me I did
bravely. I can tell your worship it is commonly said in this town that
there are no people worse than the market-women, for they are all
barefaced, unconscionable, and impudent; and I can well believe it
from what I have seen of them in other towns.

"I am very glad my lady the duchess has written to my wife Teresa
Panza and sent her the present your worship speaks of; and I will try
to show myself grateful when the time comes: kiss her hands for me,
and tell her I say she has not thrown it into a sack with a hole in
it, as she will see in the end. I should not like your worship to have
any difference with my lord and lady; for if you fall out with them it
is plain it must do me harm; and as you give me advice to be grateful,
it will not do for your worship not to be so yourself to those who
have shown you such kindness, and by whom you have been treated so
hospitably in their castle.

"That about the scratching I don't understand; but I suppose it must
be one of the ill turns the wicked enchanters are always doing your
worship; when we meet I shall know all about it. I wish I could send
your worship something; but I don't know what to send, unless it be
some very curious clyster pipes to work with bladders, that they make
in this island; but if the office remains with me I'll find out
something to send, one way or another. If my wife Teresa Panza writes
to me, pay the postage and send me the letter, for I have a very great
desire to hear how my house and wife and children are going on. And
so, may God deliver your worship from evil-minded enchanters, and
bring me well and peacefully out of this government; which I doubt,
for I expect to take leave of it and my life together, from the way
Doctor Pedro Recio treats me.

"Your worship's servant,

"SANCHO PANZA THE GOVERNOR."

The secretary sealed the letter and immediately dismissed the co