make up again his watch, thereby being taught what I never knew before;
and it is a thing very well worth my having seen, and am mightily pleased
and satisfied with it. So I sat talking with him till late at night,
somewhat vexed at a snappish answer Madam Williams did give me to herself,
upon my speaking a free word to her in mirthe, calling her a mad jade.
She answered, we were not so well acquainted yet. But I was more at a
letter from my Lord Duke of Albemarle to-day, pressing us to continue our
meetings for all Christmas, which, though every body intended not to have
done, yet I am concluded in it, who intended nothing else. But I see it
is necessary that I do make often visits to my Lord Duke, which nothing
shall hinder after I have evened my accounts, and now the river is frozen
I know not how to get to him. Thence to my lodging, making up my Journall
for 8 or 9 days, and so my mind being eased of it, I to supper and to bed.
The weather hath been frosty these eight or nine days, and so we hope for
an abatement of the plague the next weeke, or else God have mercy upon us!
for the plague will certainly continue the next year if it do not.

23rd. At my office all the morning and home to dinner, my head full of
business, and there my wife finds me unexpectedly. But I not being at
leisure to stay or talk with her, she went down by coach to Woolwich,
thinking to fetch Mrs. Barbary to carry her to London to keep her
Christmas with her, and I to the office. This day one come to me with
four great turkies, as a present from Mr. Deane, at Harwich, three of
which my wife carried in the evening home with her to London in her coach
(Mrs. Barbary not being to be got so suddenly, but will come to her the
next week), and I at my office late, and then to my lodgings to bed.

24th (Sunday). Up betimes, to my Lord Duke of Albemarle by water, and
after some talke with him about business of the office with great content,
and so back again and to dinner, my landlady and her daughters with me,