A brave morning

Up, and it being a brave morning, with a gaily to Woolwich, and there both at the Ropeyarde and the other yarde did much business, and thence to Greenwich to see Mr. Pett and others value the carved work of the “Henrietta” (God knows in an ill manner for the King), and so to Deptford, and there viewed Sir W. Petty’s vessel.... So home, reading all the way a good book, and so home to dinner, and after dinner a lesson on the globes to my wife, and so to my office till 10 or 11 o’clock at night, and so home to supper and to bed.

In bed I tossed and turned all night. I woke several times to find something peculiar. It seemed that I was not in bed at all, but in the back of a stagecoach, speeding down the county road, bumping and sliding in the mud and rain. We travelled all through the night until we reached Staffordshire. Mr. Pett was waiting for me here. He instructed me that it was of grave urgency that I be reprimanded into his custody for the remains of the day. Unwillingly I succumbed to his advances and agreed to the surgery. It was a gruelling experience, but one that left me pondering the meaning of a life such as mine. It seems that I am in fact more suited to living 600 to 1000 meters below the sea's surface. In a place that humans cannot go. For I am Mr. Pennyschmidt. The one and only. I resemble an eel, but am much more like a shark. And so home to supper and to bed.