When Sancho affirmed this, saying he was proud of it, it was Don Jeronimo's turn to become indignant; for it seemed to him nothing short of blasphemy to take all the drollery out of the Sancho, whom he saw before him here, he said, and who had furnished him with so many enjoyable moments through his amusing talk, while he was reading the First Part. The Sancho of the Second Part was a stupid character, a fool with no sense of humor whatever, he declared; and his declaration promptly brought forth a proverb from Sancho's lips, which summed up his contempt for the new author. "Let him who knows how ring the bells," he exclaimed.
The two gentlemen now invited the knight errant to join them at supper, as they knew, they said, that the inn could afford nothing that was befitting a warrior as illustrious as he. Always courteous, Don Quixote acquiesced, and they withdrew to the adjoining room, leaving Sancho and the landlord to sup by themselves. At supper Don Quixote related to the two gentlemen his many strange adventures, and they listened with the utmost interest; they could not help admiring his elegant and finished speech, and at the same time were astounded at the strange mixture of good sense and wit and absurd nonsense that flowed from his lips.
When Sancho had finished his cow-heels, he betook himself to the room where his master and the gentleman were supping; and as he entered he asked Don Jeronimo: "If this author calls me glutton, as your Worships say, I trust he does not call me drunkard too."
Don Jeronimo said that the author had been impertinent enough to do so, although he assured Sancho that he could see by his face that the author had lied. "Believe me," declared the squire, "the Sancho and the Don Quixote of this history must be different persons from those that appear in the one Cid Hamet Benengeli wrote, who are ourselves—my master, valiant, wise, and true in love, and I, simple, droll, and neither glutton nor drunkard."
The other gentleman, Don Juan, was of Sancho's opinion, and he added that he thought no one but Cid Hamet, the original author, should be permitted to write the history of Don Quixote's achievements—just as Alexander issued an order that no one but Apelles should presume to paint his portrait.
They carried on a conversation in this manner until quite late in the night. Don Juan offered the Second Part to our hero to read, but Don Quixote declined it, saying that it would only be flattering and encouraging to the author if he should, by chance, learn that he had read his book. Then they asked him where he would be bound for when he left the inn; and when he told them Saragossa, they mentioned that the author had given a description in the book of a tilting at the ring in that city, in which he who was called Don Quixote had participated.
That made the knight change his intentions at once. Now he was determined not to set foot in Saragossa: thus he would make the author commit perjury, trap him as a complete liar, and hold him up to ridicule before the whole world. The gentlemen thought this a most ingenious way to treat the blaspheming author, and made a suggestion that there were to be other jousts at Barcelona, to which he would be welcomed; and Don Quixote announced that he would go there instead. Then he begged leave in his usual courteous manner to retire, and withdrew to his room.
Early on the following morning the knight rose, and bade good-by to his two new friends by knocking at the partition that separated their rooms, while Sancho paid the landlord for the lodging and the cow-heels.