Page:Et Cetera, a Collector's Scrap-Book (1924).djvu/203

 his side. He presedpressed [sic] his heavy nose against the window-pane, and looked out.

“I see no wind-mill, Your Majesty.”

“Yonder—there—beyond the trees.”

“That is not a wind-mill, Your Majesty. It is your body-guard, composed of the handsomest officers, drilling.”

“Sancho, my friend, you are lost. They have enchanted you completely, alas!”

The Governor-General had the impulse to kneel before His Majesty, and beg him to come to his senses, but his body protruding far beyond him forbade him from doing it. Instead he took his master’s hand, and kissed it.

“Your Majesty, I beg of you,—be reasonable! See things as they are. When we used to encounter wind-mills in our humble days, you used to think them great armies, and now the flower of the finest army in the world, you consider a wind-mill!”

“O, Sancho, Sancho, faithful shield-bearer to the once great Don Quijote, most valiant knight of Spain—you shall soon walk on all fours and grunt.”

“How should I walk on all fours, when I cannot even bend? A moment ago, I wanted to kneel before you, but could not.”

“Sancho, my friend, I am still enough of the ‘Knight of the Sorrowful Visage’ to speak figuratively. When I spoke of you as walking on all fours and grunting, I meant spiritually. To all the