Although Jeremiah Mount receives only passing notice in the celebrated diary of Samuel Pepys, in Jem's own memoirs Sam figures significantly and large -- not as a fellow clerk in Oliver Cromwell's government but as an ill-natured, galling colleague and measly mouse of a man who sets the professionally envious Jem on a hapless path of revenge. Their personal destinies criss-crossing to wildly ironic ends, Jem (and Sam) not only pursue worldly successes...