scourses, what and how many ways there are for poor children to get
their livings honestly. So home and I to bed at 12 o'clock at night,
being pleased well with the work that my workmen have begun to-day.

26th. Up early to do business in my study. This is my great day that
three years ago I was cut of the stone, and, blessed be God, I do yet
find myself very free from pain again. All this morning I staid at home
looking after my workmen to my great content about my stairs, and
at noon by coach to my father's, where Mrs. Turner, The. Joyce, Mr.
Morrice, Mr. Armiger, Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, and his wife, my father
and mother, and myself and my wife. Very merry at dinner; among other
things, because Mrs. Turner and her company eat no flesh at all this
Lent, and I had a great deal of good flesh which made their mouths
water. After dinner Mrs. Pierce and her husband and I and my wife to
Salisbury Court, where coming late he and she light of Col. Boone that
made room for them, and I and my wife sat in the pit, and there met with
Mr. Lewes and Tom Whitton, and saw "The Bondman" done to admiration. So
home by coach, and after a view of what the workmen had done to-day I
went to bed.

27th. Up early to see my workmen at work. My brother Tom comes to me,
and among other things I looked over my old clothes and did give him a
suit of black stuff clothes and a hat and some shoes. At the office all
the morning, where Sir G. Carteret comes, and there I did get him to
promise me some money upon a bill of exchange, whereby I shall secure
myself of L60 which otherwise I should not know how to get. At noon
I found my stairs quite broke down, that I could not get up but by a
ladder; and my wife not being well she kept her chamber all this day. To
the Dolphin to a dinner of Mr. Harris's, where Sir Williams both and
my Lady Batten, and her two daughters, and other company, where a great
deal of mirth, and there staid till 11 o'clock at night; and in our
mirth I sang and sometimes fiddled (there being a noise of fiddlers
there), and at last we fell to dancing, the first time that ever I did
in my life, which I did wonder to see myself to do. At last we made
Mingo, Sir W. Batten's black, and Jack, Sir W. Pen's, dance, and it
was strange how the first did dance with a great deal of seeming skill.
Home, where I found my wife all day in her chamber. So to bed.

28th. Up early among my workmen, then Mr. Creed coming to see me I went
along with