it receives them squeamishly, and sometimes with loathing. What the
head-carver had best do is to serve me with what they call ollas podridas
(and the rottener they are the better they smell); and he can put
whatever he likes into them, so long as it is good to eat, and I'll be
obliged to him, and will requite him some day. But let nobody play pranks
on me, for either we are or we are not; let us live and eat in peace and
good-fellowship, for when God sends the dawn, he sends it for all. I mean
to govern this island without giving up a right or taking a bribe; let
everyone keep his eye open, and look out for the arrow; for I can tell
them 'the devil's in Cantillana,' and if they drive me to it they'll see
something that will astonish them. Nay! make yourself honey and the flies
eat you."

"Of a truth, senor governor," said the carver, "your worship is in the
right of it in everything you have said; and I promise you in the name of
all the inhabitants of this island that they will serve your worship with
all zeal, affection, and good-will, for the mild kind of government you
have given a sample of to begin with, leaves them no ground for doing or
thinking anything to your worship's disadvantage."

"That I believe," said Sancho; "and they would be great fools if they did
or thought otherwise; once more I say, see to my feeding and my Dapple's
for that is the great point and what is most to the purpose; and when the
hour comes let us go the rounds, for it is my intention to purge this
island of all manner of uncleanness and of all idle good-for-nothing
vagabonds; for I would have you know that lazy idlers are the same thing
in a State as the drones in a hive, that eat up the honey the industrious
bees make. I mean to protect the husbandman, to preserve to the gentleman
his privileges, to reward the virtuous, and above all to respect religion
and honour its ministers. What say you to that, my friends? Is there
anything in what I say, or am I talking to no purpose?"

"There is so much in what your worship says, senor governor," said the
majordomo, "that I am filled with wonder when I see a man like your
worship, entirely without learning (for I believe you have none at all),
say such things, and so full of sound maxims and sage remarks, very
different from what was expected of your worship's intelligence by those
who sent us or by us who came here. Every day we see something new in
this world; jokes become realities, and th