20th.  Up, and to the office, where Mrs. Daniel comes. . . .  All the morning at the office.  Dined at home, then with Mr. Colvill to the new Excise Office in Aldersgate Street, and thence back to the Old Exchange, to see a very noble fine lady I spied as I went through, in coming; and there took occasion to buy some gloves, and admire her, and a mighty fine fair lady indeed she was.  Thence idling all the afternoon to Duck Lane, and there saw my bookseller’s moher, but get no ground there yet; and here saw Mrs. Michell’s daughter married newly to a bookseller, and she proves a comely little grave woman.  So to visit my Lord Crew, who is very sick, to great danger, by an irisipulus;—­[Erysipelas.]—­the first day I heard of it, and so home, and took occasion to buy a rest for my espinette at the ironmonger’s by Holborn Conduit, where the fair pretty woman is that I have lately observed there, and she is pretty, and je credo vain enough.  Thence home and busy till night, and so to bed.

21st.  Up, and to St. James’s, but lost labour, the Duke abroad.  So home to the office, where all the morning, and so to dinner, and then all the afternoon at the office, only went to my plate-maker’s, and there spent an hour about contriving my little plates,

[This passage has been frequently quoted as referring to Pepys’s. small bookplate, with his initials S. P. and two anchors and ropes entwined; but if looked at carefully with the further reference on the 27th, it will be seen that it merely describes the preparation of engravings of the four dockyards.]

for my books of the King’s four Yards.  At night walked in the garden, and supped and to bed, my eyes bad.

22nd.  All the morning at the office.  Dined at home, and then to White Hall with Symson the joyner, and after attending at the Committee of the Navy about the old business of tickets, where the only expedient they have found is to bind the Commanders and Officers by oaths.  The Duke of York told me how the Duke of Buckingham, after the Council the other day, did make mirth at my position, about the sufficiency of present rules in the business of tickets; and here I took occasion to desire a private discourse with the Duke of York, and he granted it to me on Friday next.  So to shew Symson the King’s new lodgings for his chimnies, which I desire to have one built in that mode, and so I home, and with little supper, to bed.  This day a falling out between my wife and Deb., about a hood lost, which vexed me.

23rd.  Up, and all day long, but at dinner, at the Office, at work, till I was almost blind, which makes my heart sad.