Беатрис Поттер (Beatrix Potter)The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tailor of Gloucester, by Beatrix Potter
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Title: The Tailor of Gloucester
Author: Beatrix Potter
Release Date: February 2, 2005 [EBook #14868]
Language: English
Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online
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THE TAILOR OF
GLOUCESTER
BY
BEATRIX POTTER
Author of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," etc
| "I'LL BE AT CHARGES FOR A LOOKING-GLASS, |
| AND ENTERTAIN A SCORE OR TWO OF TAILORS" |
| Richard III |
NEW YORK
FREDERICK WARNE & CO, INC
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY
FREDERICK WARNE & Co.
COPYRIGHT RENEWED, 1931
[All rights reserved]
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY PRINCETON POLYCHROME PRESS
ISBN O 7232 0594 9 (cloth) ISBN O-7232-6227-6 (paper)
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20(C)
MY DEAR FREDA,
Because you are fond of fairy-tales, and have been ill, I have made you a story all for yourself—a new one that nobody has read before.
And the queerest thing about it is—that I heard it in Gloucestershire, and that it is true—at least about the tailor, the waistcoat, and the
"No more twist!"
Christmas, 1901
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.