When Sancho heard him call the basin a headpiece he was unable to
restrain his laughter, but remembering his master's wrath he checked
himself in the midst of it.

"What art thou laughing at, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"I am laughing," said he, "to think of the great head the pagan must have
had who owned this helmet, for it looks exactly like a regular barber's
basin."

"Dost thou know what I suspect, Sancho?" said Don Quixote; "that this
wonderful piece of this enchanted helmet must by some strange accident
have come into the hands of some one who was unable to recognise or
realise its value, and who, not knowing what he did, and seeing it to be
of the purest gold, must have melted down one half for the sake of what
it might be worth, and of the other made this which is like a barber's
basin as thou sayest; but be it as it may, to me who recognise it, its
transformation makes no difference, for I will set it to rights at the
first village where there is a blacksmith, and in such style that that
helmet the god of smithies forged for the god of battles shall not
surpass it or even come up to it; and in the meantime I will wear it as
well as I can, for something is better than nothing; all the more as it
will be quite enough to protect me from any chance blow of a stone."

"That is," said Sancho, "if it is not shot with a sling as they were in
the battle of the two armies, when they signed the cross on your
worship's grinders and smashed the flask with that blessed draught that
made me vomit my bowels up."

"It does not grieve me much to have lost it," said Don Quixote, "for thou