give me leave to speak a little to you? For since you
laid that hard injunction of silence on me several things have gone to
rot in my stomach, and I have now just one on the tip of my tongue that I
don't want to be spoiled."

"Say, on, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and be brief in thy discourse, for
there is no pleasure in one that is long."

"Well then, senor," returned Sancho, "I say that for some days past I
have been considering how little is got or gained by going in search of
these adventures that your worship seeks in these wilds and cross-roads,
where, even if the most perilous are victoriously achieved, there is no
one to see or know of them, and so they must be left untold for ever, to
the loss of your worship's object and the credit they deserve; therefore
it seems to me it would be better (saving your worship's better judgment)
if we were to go and serve some emperor or other great prince who may
have some war on hand, in whose service your worship may prove the worth
of your person, your great might, and greater understanding, on
perceiving which the lord in whose service we may be will perforce have
to reward us, each according to his merits; and there you will not be at
a loss for some one to set down your achievements in writing so as to
preserve their memory for ever. Of my own I say nothing, as they will not
go beyond squirely limits, though I make bold to say that, if it be the
practice in chivalry to write the achievements of squires, I think mine
must not be left out."

"Thou speakest not amiss, Sancho," answered Don Quixote, "but before that
point is reached it is requisite to roam the world, as it were on
probation, seeking adventures, in order that, by achieving some, name and
fame may be acquired, such that when he betakes himself to the court of
some great monarch the knight may be already known by his deeds, and that
the boys, the instant they see him enter the gate of the city, may all
follow him and surround him, crying, 'This is the Knight of the Sun'-or
the Serpent, or any other title under which he may have achieved great
deeds. 'This,' they will say, 'is he who vanquished in single combat the
gigantic Brocabruno of mighty strength; he who delivered the great
Mameluke of Persia out of the long enchantment under which he had been
for almost nine hundred years.' So from one to another they will go
proclaiming his achievements; and presently at the tumult of the boys and
the others the king