106 • Confusionmatins, and gravediggers were never without their pipes. Two centuries later,
workmen excavating the London Underground discovered clay “plague”
pipes along with a cluster of human skeletons.^21
Tobacco and plague water put Samuel in a better mood, but he was cast-
ing about for more pleasurable prophylactics. By July, his rabbit’s foot, which
had warded off colds during the bitter winter, no longer seemed an adequate
talisman. On his rounds, he stuffed his nose with sweet-smelling herbs. On
occasion, however, he went about in hackney coaches that might not have
been disinfected after transporting the sick to the pesthouse, as public orders
required. Still more puzzling was the increase in his dalliances as the plague
claimed more and more victims, since many of his trysting grounds were rife
with infection. Afterward, Pepys recorded the encounters with a playful mix-
ture of foreign words in his private diary—in shorthand, like the other en-
tries, to escape detection if his wife should chance upon his journal.^22
Pepys arrived home late one night after traveling up and down the Thames
on business. He was bone tired yet relieved to see his assistant Will, whom he
insisted on putting up despite fears of catching the infection from him. The
next day also promised to be busy, but he didn’t intend it to be completely
taken up with his navy colleagues and suppliers. At the Harp and Ball, Sam-
uel made a “bargain” with Mary to go to the good air up in Highgate and
Hampstead. At the appointed time, he returned to the tavern by boat, and
they took a coach northward, he “much pleased with her company, pretty and
innocent,” while he had what pleasure “almost” he would with her.
That night, Pepys was too tired to put this reckless tryst into his quaint
multilanguage code. “And so at night, weary and sweaty, it being very hot be-
yond bearing,” he wrote, “we back again and I set her down in St. Martins
Lane.” He had gone on to the Royal Exchange, written some letters at his
office, and finally turned in for the night. “So away to bed,” he ended his di-
ary note, “shifting myself and taking some Venice Treacle, feeling myself out
of order.”^23
A standard procedure for keeping a home plague-free was to burn tar,
pitch, niter, frankincense, and rosin in the room most frequented and also
before the doors and on the rooftops. For the poorest families, brimstone or
vitriol was recommended. A typical recipe reads: “Place green vitriol, beaten
well, over coals in a chaffing dish, and keep for use; or pestilential vinegar
thrown on a hot brick.”
No one was more adept at capitalizing on the popularity of fumigation
than was James Angier. Flushed with self-proclaimed success in Paris,
Lyons, and Toulouse, his London practice took off in June, helped by a