her
would say he is not so well entitled to it. I bustled on the day of the
ceremony through the crowd, and it was with incredible delight I heard
several say, as my clothes walked by, 'Bless me, was ever anything so
fine as the earl of Devonshire? Sure he and Sir Hugh Bigot are the two
best dressed men I ever saw.' Now both those suits were of my making.

"There would indeed be infinite pleasure in working for the courtiers,
as they are generally genteel men, and show one's clothes to the best
advantage, was it not for one small discouragement; this is, that they
never pay. I solemnly protest, though I lost almost as much by the court
in my life as I got by the city, I never carried a suit into the latter
with half the satisfaction which I have done to the former; though from
that I was certain of ready money, and from this almost as certain of no
money at all.

"Courtiers may, however, be divided into two sorts, very essentially
different from each other; into those who never intend to pay for their
clothes; and those who do intend to pay for them, but never happen to be
able. Of the latter sort are many of those young gentlemen whom we equip
out for the army, and who are, unhappily for us, cut off before they
arrive at preferment. This is the reason that tailors, in time of war,
are mistaken for politicians by their inquisitiveness into the event of
battles, one campaign very often proving the ruin of half-a-dozen of us.
I am sure I had frequent reason to curse that fatal battle of Cardigan,
where the Welsh defeated some of king Stephen's best troops, and where
many a good suit of mine unpaid for, fell to the ground.

"The gentlemen of this honorable calling have fared much better in later
ages than when I was of it; for now it seems the fashion is, when they
apprehend their customer is not in the best circumstances, if they are
not paid as soon as they carry home the suit, they charge him in their
book as much again as it is worth, and then send a gentleman with a
small scrip of parchment to demand the money. If this be not immediately
paid the gentleman takes the beau with him to his house, where he locks
him up till the tailor is contented: but in my time these scrips of
parchment were not in use; and if the beau disliked paying for his
clothes, as very often happened, we had no method of compelling him.

"In several of the characters which I have related to you, I apprehend I
have sometimes forgot myself, and