Of Some Things Which Benengali Tells Us He That Reads Shall Know, if He Reads Them with Attention.
This chapter faithfully transcribes a conversation between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza regarding salary. As the squire pursues his request, the Don politely asks how many months of a monthly wage is owing. Sancho replies that twenty years have passed since he has been promised a government of an island. Gladly will he pay, says Don Quixote, the better to get rid of such a mercenary varlet. Furthermore, he says, "Thou perverter of the laws of chivalry that pertain to squires, where didst thou ever see or read that any squire to a knight-errant stood capitulating with his master, as thou hast done with me, for so and so much a month?" He continues to scold until tears well up in Sancho's eyes, and then he begs humble pardon; the two friends are once more amicably settled in their differences.
