between my Lord Ashly and Sir W. Coventry, about our business of the prize
ships. And that my Lord Ashly did snuff and talk as high to him, as he
used to do to any ordinary seaman. And that Sir W. Coventry did take it
very quietly, but yet for all did speak his mind soberly and with reason,
and went away, saying, he had done his duty therein, and so left it to
them, whether they would let so many ships go for masts or not: Here he
and I talked of 1,000 businesses, all profitable discourse, and late
parted, and I home to supper and to bed, troubled a little at a letter
from my father, telling me how [he] is like to be sued for a debt of
Tom's, by Smith, the mercer.

22nd. Up, and to the office all the morning. At noon my wife being gone
to her father's I dined with Sir W. Batten, he inviting me. After dinner
to my office close, and did very much business, and so late home to supper
and to bed. The plague increased four this week, which troubles me,
though but one in the whole.

23rd. Up, and going out of my dressing-room, when ready to go down
stairs, I spied little Mrs. Tooker, my pretty little girle, which, it
seems, did come yesterday to our house to stay a little while with us, but
I did not know of it till now. I was glad of her coming, she being a very
pretty child, and now grown almost a woman. I out by six o'clock by
appointment to Hales's, where we fell to my picture presently very hard,
and it comes on a very fine picture, and very merry, pleasant discourse we
had all the morning while he was painting. Anon comes my wife and Mercer
and little Tooker, and having done with me we all to a picture drawer's
hard by, Hales carrying me to see some landskipps of a man's doing. But I
do not [like] any of them, save only a piece of fruit, which indeed was
very fine. Thence I to Westminster, to the Chequer, about a little
business, and then to the Swan, and there sent for a bit of meat and