There was nothing this invaluable servant could not do.

At baiting or shoeing a horse, at healing a wound, at roasting a capon, or at mending a doublet, he was alike a master, besides possessing a score of other accomplishments that do not now occur to me, which in his campaigning he had acquired.

Of late the easy life in Paris had made him incline to corpulency, and his face was of a pale, unhealthy fullness.
To-night, as he assisted me to undress, it wore an expression of supreme woe.
"Monseigneur is going into Languedoc ?" he inquired sorrowfully.

He always called me his "seigneur," as did the other of my servants born at Bardelys.
"Knave, you have been listening," said I.
"But, monseigneur," he explained, "when Monsieur le Comte de Chatellerault laid his wager--" "And have I not told you, Ganymede, that when you chance to be among my friends you should hear nothing but the words addressed to you, see nothing but the glasses that need replenishing?
But, there! We are going into Languedoc.

What of it ?" "They say that war may break out at any moment," he groaned; "that Monsieur le Duc de Montmorency is receiving reenforcements from Spain, and that he intends to uphold the standard of Monsieur and the rights of the province against the encroachments of His Eminence the Cardinal." "So! We are becoming politicians, eh, Ganymede?
And how shall all this concern us?
Had you listened more attentively, you had learnt that we go to Languedoc to seek a wife, and not to concern ourselves with Cardinals and Dukes.