being the first time that I could get home before our gates were shut
since I came to the Navy office. When I came home I found my wife not
very well of her old pain . . . . which she had when we were married
first. I went and cast up the expense that I laid out upon my former
house (because there are so many that are desirous of it, and I am, in my
mind, loth to let it go out of my hands, for fear of a turn). I find my
layings-out to come to about L20, which with my fine will come to about
L22 to him that shall hire my house of me.--[Pepys wished to let his house
in Axe Yard now that he had apartments at the Navy Office.]--To bed.

3rd. Up betimes this morning, and after the barber had done with me, then
to the office, where I and Sir William Pen only did meet and despatch
business. At noon my wife and I by coach to Dr. Clerke's to dinner: I was
very much taken with his lady, a comely, proper woman, though not
handsome; but a woman of the best language I ever heard. Here dined Mrs.
Pierce and her husband. After dinner I took leave to go to Westminster,
where I was at the Privy Seal Office all day, signing things and taking
money, so that I could not do as I had intended, that is to return to them
and go to the Red Bull Playhouse,

[This well-known theatre was situated in St. John's Street on the
site of Red Bull Yard. Pepys went there on March 23rd, 1661, when
he expressed a very poor opinion of the place. T. Carew, in some
commendatory lines on Sir William. Davenant's play, "The just
Italian," 1630, abuses both audiences and actors:--

"There are the men in crowded heaps that throng
To that adulterate stage, where not a tongue
Of th' untun'd kennel can a line repeat
Of serious sense."