He would have a study built at the far end of the north promenade immediately. So promptly he set about having seasoned lumber hauled from the sawmill, bricks burned, and nails and hardware forged in the smithy. He spent a day drawing a plan for a small, one-room building. Meanwhile he found an opportunity occasionally to slip away with one or two grandchildren for a brief stay at Poplar Grove, his farm, where he could have a little quiet and relaxation. But always an impelling urgency drove him. He must write letters. He must counsel James Madison about whether or not it would be wise to keep America out of war, with conflicts raging all over Europe. Napoleon was running wild and perhaps the British should be left alone to contain and subdue him. He must write, too, to his old friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, and invite him to Monticello for a visit. Lafayette had been in prison, and suffered hardships and loss of fortune. The debt America owed Lafayette had never been paid, and, to Jefferson’s mind, had never been adequately acknowledged, and he felt responsibility to prod the consciences of men in power to do something about that. All these ideas possessed him, then at times were diminished by a kind of inner irony. Who was he, to be so concerned about a debt owed to any man when he himself was likely faced with a weight of debts he had not yet had the courage to calculate? Some time soon when his private lair was completed he must sit down for a day or a week and put all his books and accounts in order. It was a kind of cowardice in him, he knew, that put off the reckoning from one day to another. Meanwhile his new wool suit was finished and he was more pleased than ever with the fineness of the material. With the coming of winter, Martha had taken her own brood back to their plantation, but when she returned for a brief visit Jefferson dressed up in his new clothes and paraded before her, grinning like a happy boy. Martha gave a little surprise shriek. “Papa! Pantaloons! I never would have believed you would give up those old knee breeches and long stockings.” “They’re warmer,” Jefferson turned and posed naively, “and the London papers that still come through in spite of the embargo say that they are the new style in England. Jemmy Madison wrote that he had a pair made—black broadcloth. Every hair and bit of lint sticks to that stuff. I’m sending Jemmy enough of this goods to have himself a suit made. With the president wearing it, we might be able to sell more in Washington. Some friends who were here last week said the cloth was better than the finest wool that comes from England.” “It will certainly help if you can find a new product to market. All these visitors this summer devoured so much of our substance that should have gone for ready money, and money, Papa, is what you need badly, as I’m sure you know.”