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

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

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) F/

_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_

[Illustration]

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; t