The servant only smiled.
“Why did you smile?”
“Oh, my lord––”
“Was it not that you thought it a good joke for a dying man to discharge his servant?”
“My lord is quick to catch the humorous side of anything,” returned François.
“Begone, idiot! You are waiting for my death to discharge you. I can see it in your eyes. Yet stay, François, for, if you leave me, I shall be alone. You will not leave me?”
“As my lord desires,” was François’ response.
“I imagine I should feel better if I had my footbath.”
The servant removed the shoes and silken stockings from his master’s feet and propped him up in a chair, throwing a blanket over his shoulders and heaping more wood upon the fire in the grate.
“More fire, you idiot!” cried the marquis, peevishly. “Do you not see that I am freezing?”