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were discussing what the future was holding for them, and Sancho gave the glad news to his master that he had induced his wife to sanction his departure and his becoming governor. Sancho was very much annoyed by his master's continual interruptions and corrections. Whenever Sancho would misuse or abuse a word, as he did in almost every sentence, Don Quixote would stop and ask him what he meant, until poor Sancho was so confused that he did not know what he had meant. Finally Don Quixote asked him to tell him all that his wife had said, and as soon as Sancho had a chance to use proverbs again, he felt more at home. "Teresa says," he repeated, "that I should make sure with your Worship, and let papers speak and beards be still. One _take_ is better than two _I'll give thee's_." "And so say I," said Don Quixote. "Continue, Sancho my friend. Go on; thou talkest pearls to-day." "The fact is," continued Sancho, "that, as your Worship knows better than I do, we are all of us liable to death, and to-day we are, and to-morrow we are not. The lamb goes as soon as the sheep, and nobody can promise himself more hours of life in this world than God may be pleased to give him; for death is deaf, and when it comes to knock at our life's door, it is always insistent, and neither prayers, nor struggles, nor scepters, nor miters, can keep it back, as they tell us from the pulpits every day." Here Don Quixote felt he ought to ask a question. "Sancho," said he, "all that is true; but what art thou driving at?" And then came the reason for all these long-winded preliminaries. Sancho wanted his master to make definite arrangements with him for compensation. But here was the drawback. Don Quixote could recall no incident in any of the many books he had read, when a knight errant had given his squire fixed wages. How could he possibly establish a precedent now? And so it became his sad and solemn duty to refuse his squire's miserly request, and inform him that his services were no longer wanted. Not only that, but our valiant hero was cruel enough to remark that there would be any number of people who would be only too eager to serve him; and, what was more, he was convinced that no one could be less careful and diligent, or more thick-headed and talkative than Sancho. Poor Sancho stood thunderstruck. He had expected his master would address him in a much more gracious manner; and had taken for granted that his own person was indis
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