eares.

25th. Up, and busy all the morning, dined at home upon a hare pye, very
good meat, and so to my office again, and in the afternoon by coach to
attend the Council at White Hall, but come too late, so back with Mr.
Gifford, a merchant, and he and I to the Coffee-house, where I met Mr.
Hill, and there he tells me that he is to be Assistant to the Secretary of
the Prize Office (Sir Ellis Layton), which is to be held at Sir Richard
Ford's, which, methinks, is but something low, but perhaps may bring him
something considerable; but it makes me alter my opinion of his being so
rich as to make a fortune for Mrs. Pickering. Thence home and visited Sir
J. Minnes, who continues ill, but is something better; there he told me
what a mad freaking fellow Sir Ellis Layton hath been, and is, and once at
Antwerp was really mad. Thence to my office late, my cold troubling me,
and having by squeezing myself in a coach hurt my testicles, but I hope
will cease its pain without swelling. So home out of order, to supper and
to bed.

26th. Lay, being in some pain, but not much, with my last night's bruise,
but up and to my office, where busy all the morning, the like after dinner
till very late, then home to supper and to bed. My wife mightily troubled
with the tooth ake, and my cold not being gone yet, but my bruise
yesterday goes away again, and it chiefly occasioned I think now from the
sudden change of the weather from a frost to a great rayne on a sudden.

27th. Called up by Mr. Creed to discourse about some Tangier business,
and he gone I made me ready and found Jane Welsh, Mr. Jervas his mayde,
come to tell me that she was gone from her master, and is resolved to
stick to this sweetheart of hers, one Harbing (a very sorry little fellow,
and poor), which I did in a word or two endeavour to dissuade her from,