“Thou wilt look well,” said Don Quixote, “but thou must shave thy beard often, for thou hast it so thick and rough and unkempt, that if thou dost not shave it every second day at least, they will see what thou art at the distance of a musket shot.”
“What more will it be,” said Sancho, “than having a barber, and keeping him at wages in the house? and even if it be necessary, I will make him go behind me like a nobleman’s equerry.”
“Why, how dost thou know that noblemen have equerries behind them?” asked Don Quixote.
“I will tell you,” answered Sancho. “Years ago I was for a month at the capital and there I saw taking the air a very small gentleman who they said was a very great man, and a man following him on horseback in every turn he took, just as if he was his tail. I asked why this man did not join the other man, instead of always going behind him; they answered me that he was his equerry, and that it was the custom with nobles to have such persons behind them, and ever since then I know it, for I have never forgotten it.”
“Thou art right,” said Don Quixote, “and in the same way thou mayest carry thy barber with thee, for customs did not come into use all together, nor were they all invented at once, and thou mayest be the first count to have a barber to follow him; and, indeed, shaving one’s beard is a greater trust than saddling one’s horse.”
“Let the barber business be my look-out,” said Sancho; “and your worship’s be it to strive to become a king, and make me a count.”
“So it shall be,” answered Don Quixote, and raising his eyes he saw what will be told in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XXII.
OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO AGAINST THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO
