ers or not? for if your worship had let that pass--and you were not a
judge in the matter--it is my belief the madman would have gone on with
his story, and the blow of the stone, and the kicks, and more than half a
dozen cuffs would have been escaped."

"In faith, Sancho," answered Don Quixote, "if thou knewest as I do what
an honourable and illustrious lady Queen Madasima was, I know thou
wouldst say I had great patience that I did not break in pieces the mouth
that uttered such blasphemies, for a very great blasphemy it is to say or
imagine that a queen has made free with a surgeon. The truth of the story
is that that Master Elisabad whom the madman mentioned was a man of great
prudence and sound judgment, and served as governor and physician to the
queen, but to suppose that she was his mistress is nonsense deserving
very severe punishment; and as a proof that Cardenio did not know what he
was saying, remember when he said it he was out of his wits."

"That is what I say," said Sancho; "there was no occasion for minding the
words of a madman; for if good luck had not helped your worship, and he
had sent that stone at your head instead of at your breast, a fine way we
should have been in for standing up for my lady yonder, God confound her!
And then, would not Cardenio have gone free as a madman?"

"Against men in their senses or against madmen," said Don Quixote, "every
knight-errant is bound to stand up for the honour of women, whoever they
may be, much more for queens of such high degree and dignity as Queen
Madasima, for whom I have a particular regard on account of her amiable
qualities; for, besides being extremely beautiful, she was very wise, and
very patient under her misfortunes, of which she had many; and the
counsel and society of the Master Elisabad were a great help and support
to her in enduring her afflictions with wisdom and resignation; hence the
ignorant and ill-disposed vulgar took occasion to say and think that she
was his mistress; and they lie, I say it once more, and will lie two
hundred times more, all who think and say so."

"I neither say nor think so," said Sancho; "let them look to it; with
their bread let them eat it; they have rendered account to God whether
they misbehaved or not; I come from my vineyard, I know nothing; I am not
fond of prying into other men's lives; he who buys and lies feels it in
his purse; moreover, naked was I born, naked I find myself, I neither
lose nor gain;