DON QUIXOTE ARRESTED
CHAPTER XXIX
Wherein is finally decided the Dispute about Mambrino's Helmet and the Pannel
'Good Sirs,' cried the Barber, 'what do you think of those who will contend that this is not a basin but a helmet?'
'He that shall say the contrary,' said Don Quixote, 'I will make him know that he lies, if he be a Knight; and if he be but a Squire, that he lies and lies again a thousand times.'
The Barber Nicholas, Don Quixote's friend, who was then with the rest, had a mind to carry the jest further, and make them all laugh, so, speaking to the other Barber, he said: 'Sir Barber, or whoever you are, know that I am also of your profession, and have held a certificate for more than twenty years, and I know all the instruments of a Barber's art well. Moreover, in my youth I was a soldier, and I know what a helmet is like, and a morion, and a casque, and other kinds of soldiers' arms. And therefore I say, always subject to better opinion, that this good piece which is laid here before us, and which this good Knight holds in his hand, not only is not a Barber's basin, but is as far from being one as white is from black. It is a helmet, though, as I think, not a complete helmet.'
'No, truly,' said Don Quixote, 'for it wants the half, namely the lower part and the visor.'
'That is true,' said the Curate, who understood his friend's intention. And Cardenio, Fernando, and his companions fell in with this design.