Up by six o’clock, and to my office with Tom Hater dispatching business in haste. At nine o’clock to White Hall about Mr. Maes’s business at the Council, which stands in an ill condition still. Thence to Graye’s Inn, but missed of Mr. Cole the lawyer, and so walked home, calling among the joyners in Wood Streete to buy a table and bade in many places, but did not buy it till I come home to see the place where it is to stand, to judge how big it must be. So after ‘Change home and a good dinner, and then to White Hall to a Committee of the Fishery, where my Lord Craven and Mr. Gray mightily against Mr. Creed’s being joined in the warrant for Secretary with Mr. Duke. However I did get it put off till the Duke of Yorke was there, and so broke up doing nothing. So walked home, first to the Wardrobe, and there saw one suit of clothes made for my boy and linen set out, and I think to have him the latter end of this week, and so home, Mr. Creed walking the greatest part of the way with me advising what to do in his case about his being Secretary to us in conjunction with Duke, which I did give him the best I could, and so home and to my office, where very much business, and then home to supper and to bed.
I hate haste
at a stand-still I see
where to stand
how big must be a committee
for doing nothing
one suit with his secretary
I did the best I could
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 24 August 1664.