siness till
late at night, I having lately followed my business much, I find great
pleasure in it, and a growing content.

14th. At the office all the morning. At noon Sir W. Pen and I making a
bargain with the workmen about his house, at which I did see things not
so well contracted for as I would have, and I was vexed and made him
so too to see me so critical in the agreement. Home to dinner. In the
afternoon came the German Dr. Kuffler,

[This is the secret of Cornelius van Drebbel (1572-1634), which is
referred to again by Pepys on November 11th, 1663. Johannes
Siberius Kuffler was originally a dyer at Leyden, who married
Drebbel's daughter. In the "Calendar of State Papers, Domestic,"
1661-62 (p. 327), is the following entry: "Request of Johannes
Siberius Kuffler and Jacob Drebble for a trial of their father
Cornelius Drebble's secret of sinking or destroying ships in a
moment; and if it succeed, for a reward of L10,000. The secret was
left them by will, to preserve for the English crown before any
other state." Cornelius van Drebbel settled in London, where he
died. James I. took some interest in him, and is said to have
interfered when he was in prison in Austria and in danger of
execution.]

to discourse with us about his engine to blow up ships. We doubted not
the matter of fact, it being tried in Cromwell's time, but the safety
of carrying them in ships; but he do tell us, that when he comes to tell
the King his secret (for none but the Kings, successively, and their
heirs must know it), it will appear to be of no danger at all. We
concluded nothing; but shall discourse with the Duke of York to-morrow
about it. In the afternoon, after we had done with him, I went to speak
with my uncle Wight and found my aunt to have been ill a good while of
a miscarriage, I staid and talked with her a good while. Thence home,
where I found that Sarah the maid had been very ill all day, and my wife
fears that she will have an ague, which I am much troubled for. Thence
to my lute, upon which I have not played a week or two, and trying over
the two songs of "Nulla, nulla," &c., and "Gaze not on Swans," which Mr.
Berkenshaw set for me a little while ago, I find them most incomparable
songs as he has set them, of which I am not a little proud, because I
am sure none in the world has them but myself, not so much as he himself
that set them. So to bed.

15th. W