upon the nature of fire, and how
it goes out in a place where the ayre is not free, and sooner out where
the ayre is exhausted, which they showed by an engine on purpose. After
this being done, they to the Crowne Taverne, behind the 'Change, and
there my Lord and most of the company to a club supper; Sir P. Neale,
Sir R. Murrey, Dr. Clerke, Dr. Whistler, Dr. Goddard, and others of most
eminent worth. Above all, Mr. Boyle to-day was at the meeting, and above
him Mr. Hooke, who is the most, and promises the least, of any man in
the world that ever I saw. Here excellent discourse till ten at night,
and then home, and to Sir W. Batten's, where I hear that Sir Thos. Harvy
intends to put Mr. Turner out of his house and come in himself, which
will be very hard to them, and though I love him not, yet for his
family's sake I pity him. So home and to bed.

16th. Up, and with Mr. Andrews to White Hall, where a Committee of
Tangier, and there I did our victuallers' business for some more money,
out of which I hope to get a little, of which I was glad; but, Lord!
to see to what a degree of contempt, nay, scorn, Mr. Povy, through his
prodigious folly, hath brought himself in his accounts, that if he be
not a man of a great interest, he will be kicked out of his employment
for a foole, is very strange, and that most deservedly that ever man
was, for never any man, that understands accounts so little, ever went
through so much, and yet goes through it with the greatest shame and
yet with confidence that ever I saw man in my life. God deliver me in my
owne business of my bill out of his hands, and if ever I foul my fingers
with him again let me suffer for it! Back to the 'Change, and thence
home to dinner, where Mrs. Hunt dined with me, and poor Mrs. Batters;
who brought her little daughter with her, and a letter from her husband,
wherein, as a token, the foole presents me very seriously with his
daughter for me to take the charge of bringing up for him, and to make
my owne. But I took no notice to her at all of the substance of the
letter, but fell to discourse, and so went away to the office, where all
the afternoon till almost one in the morning, and then home to bed.

17th. Up, and it being bitter cold, and frost and snow, which I had
thought had quite left us, I by coach to Povy's, where he told me, as I
knew already, how he was handled the other day, and is still, by my Lord
Barkeley, and among other things tells me, what I did no