is this! that a man cannot live
without playing the knave and dissimulation. At Whitehall we parted, and
I to Mrs. Pierce's, meeting her and Madam Clifford in the street, and
there staid talking and laughing with them a good while, and so back to
my mother's, and there supped, and so home and to bed.

2nd. In the morning to my cozen Thos. Pepys, executor, and there talked
with him about my uncle Thomas, his being in the country, but he could
not advise me to anything therein, not knowing what the other has done
in the country, and so we parted. And so to Whitehall, and there my Lord
Privy Seal, who has been out of town this week, not being yet come,
we can have no seal, and therefore meeting with Mr. Battersby the
apothecary in Fenchurch Street to the King's Apothecary's chamber in
Whitehall, and there drank a bottle or two of wine, and so he and I by
water towards London. I landed at Blackfriars and so to the Wardrobe
and dined, and then back to Whitehall with Captain Ferrers, and there
walked, and thence to Westminster Hall, where we met with Mr. Pickering,
and so all of us to the Rhenish wine house (Prior's), where the master
of the house is laying out some money in making a cellar with an arch in
his yard, which is very convenient for him. Here we staid a good while,
and so Mr. Pickering and I to Westminster Hall again, and there walked
an hour or two talking, and though he be a fool, yet he keeps much
company, and will tell all he sees or hears, and so a man may understand
what the common talk of the town is, and I find by him that there
are endeavours to get my Lord out of play at sea, which I believe Mr.
Coventry and the Duke do think will make them more absolute; but I hope,
for all this, they will not be able to do it. He tells me plainly of the
vices of the Court, and how the pox is so common there, and so I hear on
all hands that it is as common as eating and swearing. From him by water
to the bridge, and thence to the Mitre, where I met my uncle and aunt
Wight come to see Mrs. Rawlinson (in her husband's absence out of town),
and so I staid with them and Mr. Lucas and other company, very merry,
and so home, Where my wife has been busy all the day making of pies, and
had been abroad and bought things for herself, and tells that she met at
the Change with my young ladies of the Wardrobe and there helped them to
buy things, and also with Mr. Somerset, who did give her a bracelet of
rings, which did a little tro