25th.  Up and to the office, and there with Mr. Coventry sat all the morning, only we two, the rest being absent or sick.  Dined at home with my wife upon a good dish of neats’ feet and mustard, of which I made a good meal.  All the afternoon alone at my office and among my workmen, who (I mean the joyners) have even ended my dining room, and will be very handsome and to my full content.  In the evening at my office about one business or another, and so home and to bed, with my mind every day more and more quiet since I come to follow my business, and shall be very happy indeed when the trouble of my house is over.

26th (Lord’s day).Up and put on my new Scallop, and is very fine.  To church, and there saw the first time Mr. Mills in a surplice; but it seemed absurd for him to pull it over his ears in the reading-pew, after he had done, before all the church, to go up to the pulpitt, to preach without it.  Home and dined, and Mr. Sympson, my joyner that do my diningroom, and my brother Tom with me to a delicate fat pig.  Tom takes his disappointment of his mistress to heart; but all will be well again in a little time.  Then to church again, and heard a simple Scot preach most tediously.  So home, and to see Sir W. Batten, who is pretty well again, and then to my uncle Wight’s to show my fine band and to see Mrs. Margaret Wight, but she was not there.  All this day soldiers going up and down the town, there being an alarm and many Quakers and others clapped up; but I believe without any reason:  only they say in Dorsetshire there hath been some rising discovered.  So after supper home, and then to my study, and making up my monthly account to myself.  I find myself, by my expense in bands and clothes this month, abated a little of my last, and that I am worth L679 still; for which God be praised.  So home and to bed with quiett mind, blessed be God, but afeard of my candle’s going out, which makes me write thus slubberingly.

27th.  Up, and after giving order to the plasterer now to set upon the finishing of my house, then by water to wait upon the Duke, and walking in the matted Gallery, by and by comes Mr. Coventry and Sir John Minnes, and then to the Duke, and after he was ready, to his closet, where I did give him my usual account of matters, and afterwards, upon Sir J. Minnes’ desire to have one to assist him in his employment, Sir W. Pen is appointed to be his, and Mr. Pett to be the Surveyor’s assistant.  Mr. Coventry did desire to be excused, and so I hope (at least it is my present opinion) to have none joined with me, but only Mr. Coventry do desire that I would find work for one of his clerks, which I did not deny, but however I will think of it, whether without prejudice to mine I can do it.  Thence to my Lord Sandwich, who now-a-days calls me into his chamber, and alone did discourse with me about the jealousy that the Court have of people’s rising; wherein he do much dislike my Lord Monk’s being so eager against