most of the night, to get through the Life of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. At supper comes Mary Batelier, and with us all the evening,
prettily talking, and very innocent company she is; and she gone, we with
much content to bed, and to sleep, with mighty rest all night.

24th. Up, and at the Office all the morning, and at noon home to dinner,
where Mr. Gentleman, the cook, and an old woman, his third or fourth wife,
come and dined with us, to enquire about a ticket of his son's, that is
dead; and after dinner, I with Mr. Hosier to my closet, to discourse of
the business of balancing Storekeeper's accounts, which he hath taken
great pains in reducing to a method, to my great satisfaction; and I shall
be glad both for the King's sake and his, that the thing may be put in
practice, and will do my part to promote it. That done, he gone, I to the
Office, where busy till night; and then with comfort to sit with my wife,
and get her to read to me, and so to supper, and to bed, with my mind at
mighty ease.

25th. Up, and by coach with W. Hewer to see W. Coventry; but he gone out,
I to White Hall, and there waited on Lord Sandwich, which I have little
encouragement to do, because of the difficulty of seeing him, and the
little he hath to say to me when I do see him, or to any body else, but
his own idle people about him, Sir Charles Harbord, &c. Thence walked
with him to White Hall, where to the Duke of York; and there the Duke, and
Wren, and I, by appointment in his closet, to read over our letter to the
Office, which he heard, and signed it, and it is to my mind, Mr. Wren
having made it somewhat sweeter to the Board, and yet with all the advice
fully, that I did draw it up with. He [the Duke] said little more to us
now, his head being full of other business; but I do see that he do
continue to put a value upon my advice; and so Mr. Wren and I to his
chamber, and there talked: and he seems to hope that these people, the