"My dear,
"I beg of you not to be uneasy; for I have done a great deal of business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or two about my Gazette."
In the next, he does "not come home to dinner, being obliged to attend to some business abroad." Then he writes from the Devil Tavern, Temple Bar, January 3, 1707-8, as follows:—
"I have partly succeeded in my business, and enclose two guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come home to dinner; I languish for your welfare, and will never be a moment careless more.
"Your faithful husband," etc.
Within a few days, he writes from a Pall Mall tavern:—
"Dear Wife,
"Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr. Lumley, have desired me to sit an hour with them at the George, in Pall Mall, for which I desire your patience till twelve o'clock, and that you will go to bed," etc.
When money-matters were getting worse, Steele found it necessary to sleep away from home for a day or two, and he writes:—
"Tennis-court Coffee-house, May 5, 1708.