ow more sense.

The first to address him was Don Quixote, who said, "You travel very
airily, sir gallant; whither bound, may we ask, if it is your pleasure to
tell us?"

To which the youth replied, "The heat and my poverty are the reason of my
travelling so airily, and it is to the wars that I am bound."

"How poverty?" asked Don Quixote; "the heat one can understand."

"Senor," replied the youth, "in this bundle I carry velvet pantaloons to
match this jacket; if I wear them out on the road, I shall not be able to
make a decent appearance in them in the city, and I have not the
wherewithal to buy others; and so for this reason, as well as to keep
myself cool, I am making my way in this fashion to overtake some
companies of infantry that are not twelve leagues off, in which I shall
enlist, and there will be no want of baggage trains to travel with after
that to the place of embarkation, which they say will be Carthagena; I
would rather have the King for a master, and serve him in the wars, than
serve a court pauper."

"And did you get any bounty, now?" asked the cousin.

"If I had been in the service of some grandee of Spain or personage of
distinction," replied the youth, "I should have been safe to get it; for
that is the advantage of serving good masters, that out of the servants'
hall men come to be ancients or captains, or get a good pension. But I,
to my misfortune, always served place-hunters and adventurers, whose keep
and wages were so miserable and scanty that half went in paying for the
starching of one's collars; it would be a miracle indeed if a page
volunteer ever got anything like a reasonable bounty."

"And tell me, for heaven's sake," asked Don Quixote, "is it possible, my
friend, that all the time you served you never got any livery?"

"They gave me two," replied the page; "but just as when one quits a
religious community before making profession, they strip him of the dress
of the order and give him back his own clothes, so did my masters return
me mine; for as soon as the business on which they came to court was
finished, they went home and took back the liveries they had given merely
for show."

"What spilorceria!--as an Italian would say," said Don Quixote; "but for
all that, consider yourself happy in having left court with as worthy an
object as you have, for there is nothing on earth more honourable or
profitable than serving, first of all God, and then one's king and
natural lord, part