To be able to accomplish such feats the Whips must be well acquainted with the habits and haunts of the individuals beneath their charge, so that at any moment of the day or night they may send a telegram or a message to an absentee whose presence is urgently required. Pepys in his Diary (December 8, 1666) describes how the King gave an order "to my Lord Chamberlain to send to the playhouses and brothels, to bid all the Parliament-men that were there to go to the Parliament presently," to vote against some Bill of which he disapproved. The modern Whip in like manner must be ready at any moment to despatch an urgent summons to the Opera, to the Clubs, to houses where parties are being given, recalling members to their parliamentary duties. And in doing so he must exercise the greatest possible tact. The wife of a much respected member of Parliament was sleeping peacefully in her bed one night when a frantic message arrived from the party Whip imploring her husband to come at once to Westminster. She remembered that her spouse had informed her that he would probably be kept at the House until late and had begged her not to sit up. Inspired with horrible suspicions of conjugal perfidy, the good lady rose in haste and hurried down to the House of Commons to confirm them. As a matter of fact her husband had never left the precincts of Parliament, and the Whip's message had been despatched in error. The member was therefore much surprised at the sudden appearance of his wife upon the scene. His attachment to home and duty had been equally unimpaired, and he received her explanation somewhat coldly. A notice, more or less heavily underlined, is sent to each member of Parliament every morning, apprising him of the business of the day's sitting and of the necessity for his presence in the House. These "whips," as they are called, were in vogue as long ago as the year 1621, when, Porritt tells us, notices underlined six times were sent to the King's friends.[409] The urgency of the summons can be gauged by the number of underlines, and a "whip" that is underlined three times can only be ignored at the peril of the member who receives it.[410] [409] Porritt's "Unreformed House of Commons," vol. i. p. 509. [410] Until a few years ago all "whips" were underlined twice and in urgent cases five times.