"It is as thou sayest," said Don Quixote, "for the note-book in which I
wrote it I found in my own possession two days after thy departure, which
gave me very great vexation, as I knew not what thou wouldst do on
finding thyself without any letter; and I made sure thou wouldst return
from the place where thou didst first miss it."

"So I should have done," said Sancho, "if I had not got it by heart when
your worship read it to me, so that I repeated it to a sacristan, who
copied it out for me from hearing it, so exactly that he said in all the
days of his life, though he had read many a letter of excommunication, he
had never seen or read so pretty a letter as that."

"And hast thou got it still in thy memory, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"No, senor," replied Sancho, "for as soon as I had repeated it, seeing
there was no further use for it, I set about forgetting it; and if I
recollect any of it, it is that about 'Scrubbing,'I mean to say
'Sovereign Lady,' and the end 'Yours till death, the Knight of the Rueful
Countenance;' and between these two I put into it more than three hundred
'my souls' and 'my life's' and 'my eyes."




CHAPTER XXXI.

OF THE DELECTABLE DISCUSSION BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA, HIS
SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS