y him,
without troubling himself about anything else. That's what I'll do, and
not stand haggling over trifles, but wash my hands at once of the whole
business, and enjoy my rents like a duke, and let things go their own
way."

"That, brother Sancho," said the canon, "only holds good as far as the
enjoyment of the revenue goes; but the lord of the seigniory must attend
to the administration of justice, and here capacity and sound judgment
come in, and above all a firm determination to find out the truth; for if
this be wanting in the beginning, the middle and the end will always go
wrong; and God as commonly aids the honest intentions of the simple as he
frustrates the evil designs of the crafty."

"I don't understand those philosophies," returned Sancho Panza; "all I
know is I would I had the county as soon as I shall know how to govern
it; for I have as much soul as another, and as much body as anyone, and I
shall be as much king of my realm as any other of his; and being so I
should do as I liked, and doing as I liked I should please myself, and
pleasing myself I should be content, and when one is content he has
nothing more to desire, and when one has nothing more to desire there is
an end of it; so let the county come, and God he with you, and let us see
one another, as one blind man said to the other."

"That is not bad philosophy thou art talking, Sancho," said the canon;
"but for all that there is a good deal to be said on this matter of
counties."

To which Don Quixote returned, "I know not what more there is to be said;
I only guide myself by the example set me by the great Amadis of Gaul,
when he made his squire count of the Insula Firme; and so, without any
scruples of conscience, I can make a count of Sancho Panza, for he is one
of the best squires that ever knight-errant had."

The canon was astonished at the methodical nonsense (if nonsense be
capable of method) that Don Quixote uttered, at the way in which he had
described the adventure of the knight of the lake, at the impression that
the deliberate lies of the books he read had made upon him, and lastly he
marvelled at the simplicity of Sancho, who desired so eagerly to obtain
the county his master had promised him.

By this time the canon's servants, who had gone to the inn to fetch the
sumpter mule, had returned, and making a carpet and the green grass of
the meadow serve as a table, they seated themselves in the shade of some
trees and made t