The girls now perceived that they had a crazy man before them and they entered into the spirit of the occasion.
They helped Don Quixote remove his armor; but the helmet they could do nothing with, for it was tied tightly with green ribbons about his neck and on no pretext whatever would he hear of cutting them.
They laid a table for him at the door of the inn for the sake of the air, and the host brought him a piece of badly soaked and badly cooked fish and a piece of bread as black and moldy as his own armor. And a laughable sight it was to see Don Quixote eat--for, having his helmet on, he could not reach his own mouth, but had to be fed, bit by bit, by one of the girls; and for drink he would have gone without altogether if the innkeeper had not brought a hollow reed and putting one end into the knight's mouth, poured wine through the other.
While this was going on Don Quixote heard once more the swineherd's horn and felt entirely happy and satisfied, for he was convinced that he was in some famous castle and that they were regaling him with music; that the fish was trout, the bread of the whitest, the peasant girls beautiful ladies, and the landlord the castle steward. But he still felt distressed because he had not been dubbed a knight, and resolved to remedy this fault as soon as his supper was finished.
As soon as he had eaten his fill, he called the landlord of the inn, and taking him into the stable, knelt on the ground before him, declaring that he would not rise until the landlord should grant his wish and dub him a knight so that he could continue on his adventures according to the laws of chivalry. For Don Quixote, as we have said, looked on the landlord as a person of great authority, with full power to make him a knight if he chose to do so.
The landlord was something of a wag, and well aware that his guest was mad. He therefore decided to fall in with his wishes for the sport of the thing; so he told Don Quixote that he would make him a knight and gladly, that he too had been a knight errant in his time and wandered all over Spain seeking adventures, where he had proved the lightness of his feet in running away and the quickness of his fingers in picking pockets, until he had swindled and cheated so many people that he had been forced to retire to this castle of his. Here he lived on his property--and that of other persons--and he accepted money from wandering knights errant in return for the kindness and services he rendered them. And when Don Quixote told him that he never carried money with him in his travels, the landlord assured him he was making the greatest mistake in the world and that he must not suppose that, just because money and clean shirts were not mentioned in the books of chivalry of the time, the knights did without them; that was not the case at all.
