INGS THAT HAPPENED
TO OUR INVINCIBLE KNIGHT

It started to rain, and Sancho suggested the fulling-mills as a place
of refuge; but Don Quixote had taken such an aversion to them that he
would not listen to it, and they continued riding, taking the roadway.

Suddenly they saw a man on horseback, who had on his head something
that shone like gold, and at once Don Quixote exclaimed: "There comes
towards us one who wears on his head the helmet of Mambrino,
concerning which I took the oath thou rememberest."

Sancho's only reply to this was that he did not want anything more to
do with any fulling-mills; and his master entirely failed to fathom
the connection. Sancho then said he could plainly see that the man's
horse was an ass and that the man had something on his head that
shone.

The truth of the matter was that in the neighborhood were two villages
so small that the apothecary and barbershop in one of them had to
serve for both. The village barber had just been summoned to shave and
bleed a patient in the adjoining community, so he mounted his ass,
armed with a brass basin for the bleeding, and set off. He had got
about half-way, when it commenced to rain. Having a new hat, he
covered it with the clean basin, that glittered like gold.

But Don Quixote had more sense than his squire, of course, and pursued
the unknown knight with the helmet at Rocinante's wildest gallop. When
the fear-stricken barber realized that Don Quixote's uplifted spear
was aimed at him, he promptly threw himself from his ass and ran all
the way home without stopping, leaving his brass basin behind as a
trophy for our hero, who could not understand why this helmet had no
visor.

"That pagan must have had a very large head," remarked Don Quixote,
turning the basin round and round, trying to fit it to his own head,
now this way, now that.

"It looks exactly like a barber's basin," said Sancho Panza, who had
all he could do to keep from bursting into laughter.

Don Quixote treated this blasphemous thought with scorn, and said he
would stop at the next smithy to have its shape changed. His next
concern was his stomach; and when they found that the barber's ass
carried ample supplies, they soon satisfied their appetites. Sancho
now turned the conversation to the rest of the spoils of war; but Don
Quixote was unable to make up his mind that it was chivalrous to
exchange a bad ass for a good one, as was his squire's wish; so Sancho
had to sati