t into the ale-house, and
so by a back-way was put into the bull-house, where I stood a good while
all alone among the bulls, and was afeard I was among the bears, too;
but by and by the door opened, and I got into the common pit; and there,
with my cloak about my face, I stood and saw the prize fought, till one
of them, a shoemaker, was so cut in both his wrists that he could not
fight any longer, and then they broke off: his enemy was a butcher. The
sport very good, and various humours to be seen among the rabble that is
there. Thence carried Creed to White Hall, and there my wife and I took
coach and home, and both of us to Sir W. Batten's, to invite them to
dinner on Wednesday next, having a whole buck come from Hampton Court,
by the warrant which Sir Stephen Fox did give me. And so home to supper
and to bed, after a little playing on the flageolet with my wife, who do
outdo therein whatever I expected of her.

10th. Up, and all the morning at the Office, where little to do but
bemoan ourselves under the want of money; and indeed little is, or can
be done, for want of money, we having not now received one penny for any
service in many weeks, and none in view to receive, saving for paying of
some seamen's wages. At noon sent to by my Lord Bruncker to speak with
him, and it was to dine with him and his Lady Williams (which I have not
now done in many months at their own table) and Mr. Wren, who is come
to dine with them, the first time he hath been at the office since his
being the Duke of York's Secretary. Here we sat and eat and talked and
of some matters of the office, but his discourse is as yet but weak in
that matter, and no wonder, he being new in it, but I fear he will not
go about understanding with the impatience that Sir W. Coventry did.
Having dined, I away, and with my wife and Mercer, set my wife down at
the 'Change, and the other at White Hall, and I to St. James's, where we
all met, and did our usual weekly business with the Duke of York. But,
Lord! methinks both he and we are mighty flat and dull over what we
used to be, when Sir W. Coventry was among us. Thence I into St. James's
Park, and there met Mr. Povy; and he and I to walk an hour or more in
the Pell Mell, talking of the times. He tells me, among other things,
that this business of the Chancellor do breed a kind of inward distance
between the King and the Duke of York, and that it cannot be avoided;
for though the latter did at first move it th