No toll

Up, being well pleased with my new lodging and the convenience of having our mayds and none else about us, Will lying below. So to the office, and there we sat full of business all the morning. At noon I home to dinner, and then abroad to buy a bell to hang by our chamber door to call the mayds. Then to the office, and met Mr. Blackburne, who came to know the reason of his kinsman (my Will) his being observed by his friends of late to droop much. I told him my great displeasure against him and the reasons of it, to his great trouble yet satisfaction, for my care over him, and how every thing I said was for the good of the fellow, and he will take time to examine the fellow about all, and to desire my pleasure concerning him, which I told him was either that he should become a better servant or that we would not have him under my roof to be a trouble. He tells me in a few days he will come to me again and we shall agree what to do therein. I home and told my wife all, and am troubled to see that my servants and others should be the greatest trouble I have in the world, more than for myself. We then to set up our bell with a smith very well, and then I late at the office. So home to supper and to bed.

full of morning
the bell by our door

who am I to droop
if others should trouble
the world more than me


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 3 October 1663.

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