(Office day). This morning Sir W. Batten and Col. Slingsby went with Col. Birch and Sir Wm. Doyly to Chatham to pay off a ship there. So only Sir W. Pen and I left here in town.
All the afternoon among my workmen till 10 or 11 at night, and did give them drink and very merry with them, it being my luck to meet with a sort of drolling workmen on all occasions. To bed.
office is a birch
and I am the only pen
I work in luck
a sort of rolling occasion
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 28 September 1660.