r the
night he determined to fall in with his humour. So he told him he was
quite right in pursuing the object he had in view, and that such a motive
was natural and becoming in cavaliers as distinguished as he seemed and
his gallant bearing showed him to be; and that he himself in his younger
days had followed the same honourable calling, roaming in quest of
adventures in various parts of the world, among others the Curing-grounds
of Malaga, the Isles of Riaran, the Precinct of Seville, the Little
Market of Segovia, the Olivera of Valencia, the Rondilla of Granada, the
Strand of San Lucar, the Colt of Cordova, the Taverns of Toledo, and
divers other quarters, where he had proved the nimbleness of his feet and
the lightness of his fingers, doing many wrongs, cheating many widows,
ruining maids and swindling minors, and, in short, bringing himself under
the notice of almost every tribunal and court of justice in Spain; until
at last he had retired to this castle of his, where he was living upon
his property and upon that of others; and where he received all
knights-errant of whatever rank or condition they might be, all for the
great love he bore them and that they might share their substance with
him in return for his benevolence. He told him, moreover, that in this
castle of his there was no chapel in which he could watch his armour, as
it had been pulled down in order to be rebuilt, but that in a case of
necessity it might, he knew, be watched anywhere, and he might watch it
that night in a courtyard of the castle, and in the morning, God willing,
the requisite ceremonies might be performed so as to have him dubbed a
knight, and so thoroughly dubbed that nobody could be more so. He asked
if he had any money with him, to which Don Quixote replied that he had
not a farthing, as in the histories of knights-errant he had never read
of any of them carrying any. On this point the landlord told him he was
mistaken; for, though not recorded in the histories, because in the
author's opinion there was no need to mention anything so obvious and
necessary as money and clean shirts, it was not to be supposed therefore
that they did not carry them, and he might regard it as certain and
established that all knights-errant (about whom there were so many full
and unimpeachable books) carried well-furnished purses in case of
emergency, and likewise carried shirts and a little box of ointment to
cure the wounds they received. For in those