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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; 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.

[Illustration]

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.