Wednesday 28 August 1661

At home all the morning setting papers in order. At noon to the Exchange, and there met with Dr. Williams by appointment, and with him went up and down to look for an attorney, a friend of his, to advise with about our bond of my aunt Pepys of 200l., and he tells me absolutely that we shall not be forced to pay interest for the money yet. I do doubt it very much. I spent the whole afternoon drinking with him and so home. This day I counterfeited a letter to Sir W. Pen, as from the thief that stole his tankard lately, only to abuse and laugh at him.


17 Annotations

First Reading

Eric Walla  •  Link

Sam the prankster? This opens up a whole new aspect of his personality!

I assume he does this not maliciously, but just out of fun ... uh, I hope.

daniel  •  Link

it does give one pause for thought!

Louis  •  Link

Plainly not old enough yet to recognize this is the sort of joke that comes back upon the joker. Imagine his dudgeon if someone played him the same ruse about the household items missing from his place awhiles back!

vicente  •  Link

counterfeited, sounds so modern,ME countrefet,MF contrefait;
So many meanings {7}for counter {1}-ME countour, computing place. as adverb contra- against.
So much fun with counter**********.

Jbailey  •  Link

Remember that Sam is only 26 and his wife, Elizabeth, is only 21. I think sometimes the seriousness of his attitude toward his job and his household makes us forget his young age. A few weeks ago, however, he was racing carriages and engaging in jumping contests, much more indicative of his age than his position or tone may make us believe. This prank is one of the times his lack of maturity shows through.

Australian Susan  •  Link

"setting papers in order"
There he goes again! More filing! Don't think he had enough to do today: filing, then a whole afternoon's drinking, then messing about (the drink encouraging him?) writing a spoof letter.
If he was a modern day young exec. no doubt he would have spent the morning fiddling about with his Outlook mailbox and then after his liquid lunch spent the afternoon forwarding joke emails to colleagues.

JWB  •  Link

"...abuse and laugh at him..."
The Joyses's laughed at Sam's pretentions twd. knighthood and they've not been treated kindly in the diary since. Penn tapped in '60. Appears Sam's been drinking gall this afternoon. In this connection, might want'a look back to the 2 Apr. post.

vicente  •  Link

How much be sir Wm: P's tankard worth?
There be a guilt tankard, that be worth from 42s to L20 [2, mention'd by Sam]and the Pepis one be silver , so how much be sir Wm: P's tankard.. No doubt, if the thief be caught, it would be to Tyburn to entertain the the Hungry ones.

Diana Bonebrake  •  Link

Ahhh, 26 years old, enjoying the waning days of summer, wheeling and dealing, forging correspondence...why not spend half the day drunk?

Kevin Peter  •  Link

I never expected that Sam would play such a prank on Penn. It was so unexpected and so silly that I couldn't help but laugh.

I love moments like this. It makes Sam seem so human. One rarely sees moments like this in history. The stuff of daily life like this rarely gets recorded: people tend to write down the serious stuff, and regard little things like this as not worth recording.

Ruben  •  Link

worth recording...
Think of all the emails we send and receive. They replaced the written word but not being backed by paper they will vanish like spoken words...

Canongate  •  Link

To Ruben: I keep my e-mail and from time to time burn it off to disk. I'm not sure anyone cares but me, still I do it anyway just to remember what loved ones had to say before they were as busy as they are today.

Second Reading

GrannieAnnie  •  Link

And what we wouldn't give for a Selfie of Sam! He would have loved the internet and speedy email and marveled at The Cloud. Except then he wouldn't have had as many excuses to meet his business associates in pubs to drink away the day. It amazes me to think how much time he must have spent hunting for people to accomplish his business though they had runners to do some of the leg work for them. And how slowly international business, even business in the next town, must have run.

Gillian Bagwell  •  Link

Per Ruben, emails "will vanish like spoken words." I summarize deposition transcripts, and emails are the single biggest category of documents produced as exhibits in litigation. They never go away--especially the damaging ones.

AndreaLouise Hanover  •  Link

Louise - Sam would love Facebook! I made a comment about the ability to "like" the annotations. Grannieannie - "Selfies" would be of his fine clothes, he would also be a fashion Blogger.

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