The Tailor of Gloucester
The Tailor of GloucesterThe Tailor of GloucesterCopyright
The Tailor of Gloucester
Beatrix Potter
The Tailor of Gloucester
In the time of swords and periwigs and full–skirted coats
with flowered lappets—when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold–laced
waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta—there lived a tailor in
Gloucester.He sat in the window of a little shop in Westgate Street,
cross–legged on a table, from morning till dark.All day long while the light lasted he sewed and snippeted,
piecing out his satin and pompadour, and lutestring; stuffs had
strange names, and were very expensive in the days of the Tailor of
Gloucester.But although he sewed fine silk for his neighbours, he
himself was very, very poor—a little old man in spectacles, with a
pinched face, old crooked fingers, and a suit of thread–bare
clothes.He cut his coats without waste, according to his
embroidered cloth; they were very small ends and snippets that lay
about upon the table—"Too narrow breadths for nought—except
waistcoats for mice," said the tailor.One bitter cold day near Christmastime the tailor began
to make a coat—a coat of cherry–coloured corded silk embroidered
with pansies and roses, and a cream coloured satin
waistcoat—trimmed with gauze and green worsted chenille—for the
Mayor of Gloucester.The tailor worked and worked, and he talked to himself.
He measured the silk, and turned it round and round, and trimmed it
into shape with his shears; the table was all littered with
cherry–coloured snippets."No breadth at all, and cut on the cross; it is no breadth at
all; tippets for mice and ribbons for mobs! for mice!" said the
Tailor of Gloucester.