"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

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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.




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