he
asked to know what these things were. Our hero then explained their
mysteries at length. He described the deeds of King Arthur, spoke of
the famous Round Table, and told the love-story of Don Lancelot and
Queen Guinevere.

In the course of these descriptions the jesting gentleman felt that he
had fully diagnosed the madness of our knight, and thought it only
fair play to beguile the journey to the burial-place by listening to
his absurdities. Now and then he would put in a word or ask a question
in order not to break the thread. For instance, he suggested cunningly
that the calling of a knight errant was as serious as that of a
Carthusian monk; and Don Quixote replied that he thought it a much
more necessary one. And as to its demands, there was no comparison, he
declared, for if ever one rose to become an emperor it was only after
tremendous sacrifice of blood and sweat.

The traveling gentleman was agreed with him on that score; but there
was one thing he did not approve of: whenever a knight went into
battle, he commended himself to his lady, instead of God. This he
thought wrong and unchristianlike. Don Quixote, however, saw no wrong
in it. It was only human, he contended, to think first of his beloved
one at so austere a moment; and, besides, often the knight errant
would say things under his breath that would not be understood. Then
only Heaven could know whether he had called upon his lady or God.

The gentleman then soon found another argument. He expressed a doubt that
all knights errant were in love, saying that some of them commended
themselves to ladies fictitiously. Don Quixote denied this emphatically;
but the traveler thought that he had read somewhere that Don Galaor, the
brother of the valiant Amadis of Gaul, never commended himself to any
particular lady, yet he was a brave and most illustrious knight errant.
All that Don Quixote replied to this argument was: "Sir, one solitary
swallow does not make summer!" and offered, as if in confidence, his
conviction that this very knight had been very deeply in love, but
secretly.

At that very moment he heaved a sigh of weariness. The sigh was
misinterpreted by the traveler, however, for he asked our knight
whether he was reticent about telling the name of _his_ lady.

"Dulcinea del Toboso, of La Mancha," answered Don Quixote. And this
time he made her a princess, extolling her virtues and her beauty to
the traveler, who found it amusing to hear the kn