Then as I heard my master coming to the passage door, I finished fastening up my slate against the broken pane; and when he came out, I wiped down the window seat with my wig,[17] and bade him a good morrow as kindly as I could, seeing he was in trouble, though he strove and thought to hide it from me. “This window is all racked and tattered,” says I, “and it’s what I’m striving to mend.” “It _is_ all racked and tattered, plain enough,” says he, “and never mind mending it, honest old Thady,” says he; “it will do well enough for you and I, and that’s all the company we shall have left in the house by-and-by.” “I’m sorry to see your honour so low this morning,” says I; “but you’ll be better after taking your breakfast.” “Step down to the servants’ hall,” said he, “and bring me up the pen and ink into the parlour, and get a sheet of paper from Mrs. Jane, for I have business that can’t brook to be delayed; and come into the parlour with the pen and ink yourself, Thady, for I must have you to witness my signing a paper I have to execute in a hurry.” Well, while I was getting of the pen and ink-horn, and the sheet of paper, I ransacked my brains to think what could be the papers my poor master could have to execute in such a hurry, he that never thought of such a thing as doing business afore breakfast, in the whole course of his life, for any man living; but this was for my lady, as I afterwards found, and the more genteel of him after all her treatment. I was just witnessing the paper that he had scrawled over, and was shaking the ink out of my pen upon the carpet, when my lady came in to breakfast, and she started as if it had been a ghost! as well she might, when she saw Sir Condy writing at this unseasonable hour. “That will do very well, Thady,” says he to me, and took the paper I had signed to, without knowing what upon the earth it might be, out of my hands, and walked, folding it up, to my lady.