QUIXOTE'S NIECE, AND HOUSEKEEPER, TOGETHER WITH OTHER DROLL MATTERS


The history relates that the outcry Don Quixote, the curate, and the
barber heard came from the niece and the housekeeper exclaiming to
Sancho, who was striving to force his way in to see Don Quixote while
they held the door against him, "What does the vagabond want in this
house? Be off to your own, brother, for it is you, and no one else, that
delude my master, and lead him astray, and take him tramping about the
country."

To which Sancho replied, "Devil's own housekeeper! it is I who am
deluded, and led astray, and taken tramping about the country, and not
thy master! He has carried me all over the world, and you are mightily
mistaken. He enticed me away from home by a trick, promising me an
island, which I am still waiting for."

"May evil islands choke thee, thou detestable Sancho," said the niece;
"What are islands? Is it something to eat, glutton and gormandiser that
thou art?"

"It is not something to eat," replied Sancho, "but something to govern
and rule, and better than four cities or four judgeships at court."

"For all that," said the housekeeper, "you don't enter here, you bag of
mischief and sack of knavery; go govern your house and dig your
seed-patch, and give over looking for islands or shylands."

The curate and the barber listened with great amusement to the words of
the three; but Don Quixote, uneasy lest Sancho should blab and blurt out