“I’ll lay a bet,” said Sancho, “that before long there won’t be a tavern, roadside inn, hostelry, or barber’s shop where the story of our doings won’t be painted up; but I’d like it painted by the hand of a better painter than painted these.”
“Thou art right, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “for this painter is like Orbaneja, a painter there was at Úbeda, who when they asked him what he was painting, used to say, ‘Whatever it may turn out;’ and if he chanced to paint a cock he would write under it, ‘This is a cock,’ for fear they might think it was a fox. The painter or writer, for it’s all the same, who published the history of this new Don Quixote that has come out, must have been one of this sort I think, Sancho, for he painted or wrote ‘whatever it might turn out;’ or perhaps he is like a poet called Mauléon that was about the Court some years ago, who used to answer at haphazard whatever he was asked, and on one asking him what Deum de Deo meant, he replied De donde diere . But, putting this aside, tell me, Sancho, hast thou a mind to have another turn at thyself tonight, and wouldst thou rather have it indoors or in the open air?”
“Egad, señor,” said Sancho, “for what I’m going to give myself, it comes all the same to me whether it is in a house or in the fields; still I’d like it to be among trees; for I think they are company for me and help me to bear my pain wonderfully.”
“And yet it must not be, Sancho my friend,” said Don Quixote; “but, to enable thee to recover strength, we must keep it for our own village; for at the latest we shall get there the day after tomorrow.”
Sancho said he might do as he pleased; but that for his own part he would like to finish off the business quickly before his blood cooled and while he had an appetite, because “in delay there is apt to be danger” very often, and “praying to God and plying the hammer,” and “one take was better than two I’ll give thee’s,” and “a sparrow in the hand than a vulture on the wing.”