Tailor

“ The little tailor, who only made believe to be asleep, began to murmur plainly,
"Now, boy, make me that waistcoat and patch me those breeches, or I will lay my yard measure about your shoulders! I have slain seven at one blow, killed two giants, caught a unicorn, and taken a wild boar, and shall I be afraid of those who are standing outside my room door?" ”

“ So, when the tailor returned with the water, the giant sent him to fetch a couple of bundles of faggots from the forest, and bring them home. “Why not the whole forest at one stroke, every tree, young and old, knotty and smooth?” asked the tailor, and went away. “What! the whole forest, and the well, too, and its spring!” murmured the frightened giant in his beard; and he began to be still more afraid, and believed that the tailor was too great a man for him, and not fit for his servant. ”

“ FALSTAFF. Well said, good woman's tailor! well said, courageous Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman's tailor—well, Master Shallow, deep, Master Shallow. FEEBLE. I would Wart might have gone, sir. FALSTAFF. I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands. Let that suffice, most forcible Feeble. FEEBLE. It shall suffice, sir. ”

“ IV. The tailor must have given his life to the dull business of making clothes—the wheelwright and carriage-maker to their woodwork—the smith to his buckles and springs—the postillion to his riding—the horse-breeder and breaker to the cattle in his field and stable,—before I could make progress in this pleasant manner, even for a single stage. ”

“ He whistled and sang so gaily that all the little boys who passed the shop on their way to school thought what a fine thing it was to be a tailor, and told one another that when they grew to be men they’d be tailors, too. ”

“ A tailor is sewing before his door with a young priest seated sociably beside him; a burly friar goes by with an empty wine-barrel on his head; children are at play; women, at their own doorsteps, mend clothes, embroider, weave hats of Tuscan straw, or twirl the distaff. Many idlers, meanwhile, strolling from one group to another, let the warm day slide by in the sweet, interminable task of doing nothing. ”

“ I went straight to my tailor, put on the clothes and bade him look at them. He was a great tailor-he saw exactly what I saw, and what I saw was bad; and when a tailor will do that, you may be quite sure he is a good and a great man. He said the clothes were as bad as they could be, but he added: “You shall have them before you sail, and they shall be exactly as you want them. I’ll have the foreman down.” He rang a bell. Presently the door swung open and in stepped a man with an eyeglass in his eye. ”

“ A merchant tailor has in the same shop with himself one or more "bushelmen," who repair garments, and one cutter who cuts all the garments. Besides these, there are usually several "journeymen" tailors in his employ, who come to the shops for garments and make them up in their own homes, unless a "back- shop" is provided a room near by where the tailors work together, although on separate garments. ”

“ Those, with all my servants, will do very well.’ I ventured to suggest that I was not likely to want any clothes made for three weeks. ‘Oh, but tailors are always of use. I remember the time a tiger fastened on my elephant’s trunk, and so nearly clawed me out of the howdah, and my tailor saved the elephant’s life by sewing up the wound.’ I see myself sitting on an elephant while the tailor is stitching at the trunk! ”

“ What do you say to accompanying me?’ The giant looked contemptuously at the tailor, and said: ‘What a poor wretched little creature you are!’ ‘That’s a good joke,’ answered the little tailor, and unbuttoning his coat he showed the giant the girdle. ‘There now, you can read what sort of a fellow I am.’ The giant read: ‘Seven at a blow;’ and thinking they were human beings the tailor had slain, he conceived a certain respect for the little man. ”

“ The tailor is a great student of human nature. He takes the measure of every one of his customers. Of this you may surely speak. The tailor is full of pluck. I have seen him collar a man twice as big as himself, and he did it coolly and without choler.
The good tailor never slops over, though he puts in much time over slop work. The tailor cuts to order and orders to cut. ”

“ But I had not been there many minutes when the tailor came to me, saying, “There [171] is one, a foreigner, in the shop, who desires to speak with thee. He hath an axe and a pair of sandals, which he thinks are thine, and the other woodcutters have directed him to thee; so come forth to receive them, and to thank him.” With this, he returned to the shop, leaving me pale with fear, for well I knew the meaning of this thing. While I was planning what to do—whether to go into the shop, or escape by some other way—the floor was rent asunder, and there rose from it the Efrite. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The tailor, filled with admiration at the sight of these jewels, and with the most profound respect for a prince who carried such wealth in his shoes, accepted them instantly, and the Prince left the shop. But the good tailor, gazing joyfully at his new-found treasures, was so conscientious and grateful, that he ran out after the Prince, and gave him back one of the sapphires as change. ”

“ Notwithstanding almost everybody cares more about the outside than the inside of his coat, the tailor will make the inside more lasting than the outside.
He makes custom work and will work for your custom. Too often when his work is done he has to dun his customer for the pay. The tailor owes his living to sin, for through sin came cloth; but though one of the cloth, the tailor is not a clergyman, who also, by the way, gets his living through sin. ”

“ Any garment resting on the floor would have been too soiled for a gentleman’s wear before it was donned at all.
I have discovered one thing about old-time tailors,—they were just as trying as their successors, and had as many tricks of trade. A writer in 1582 says, “If a tailor makes your gown too little, he covers his fault with a broad stomacher ”

“ Then the little tailor called the huntsmen that they might see the prisoner with their own eyes; and then he betook himself to the king, who now, whether he liked it or not, was obliged to fulfil his promise, and give him his daughter and the half of his kingdom. But if he had known that the great warrior was only a little tailor he would have taken it still more to heart. So the wedding was celebrated with great splendour and little joy, and the tailor was made into a king. ”

“ The matter settled, while my father wrote to our county member to beg that he would look out for a good ship for me, I wrote to my tailor, directing him to make me a uniform without delay, and to arrange my outfit. Young gentlemen with large expectations are as fond of fine clothes as are sometimes poor ones ”

“ Come, tailor, let us see't. O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here? What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon. What, up and down, carv'd like an appletart? Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash, Like to a censer in a barber's shop. Why, what a devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this? ”

“ Moreover, I bespoke of him other clothes and bade him hang them out in front of his shop, that the folk might see them and buy them. He did as I bade him, and whoso came forth of the palace and aught of the clothes pleased him, I made him a present thereof, even to the doorkeeper.
One day, the tailor said to me, “O my son, I would have thee tell me the truth of thy case; for thou hast bespoken of me a hundred costly suits, each worth much money, and hast given the most of them to the folk. ”

“ Thou art a strange fellow. A tailor make a man? Kent. Ay, a tailor, sir. A stonecutter or a painter could not have made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade. ”

“ My tailor has, as I hear, long since realized a fortune and retired, in consequence of the enlightenment he at different times received from me on the great principles of, not clothing, but embellishing the human subject. ”

“ Five ells for a light Spanish dress! Whither did this draper and tailor expect to go? ... But we must not be uncharitable. Tailors who have a reputation to support require more materials for the exercise of their genius, than the vulgar snippers of the shopboard. ”

“ The tailor adapts the manikin as well as the clothes to his patron's wants. The tailor's object, in this volume, is to fit young men, in Universities or elsewhere, to be men of the world, equipped for any emergency ”

“ There is one thing very strange about the tailor. Although the pantaloons he turns out are constructed on correct principles, he makes them all cross-legged. Like other men he pants for renown, but is mainly concerned for the renown of his pants. If you say ought against his trousers, I trow, sirs, he will give you fits. No matter how he may wear with others, the tailor tries to make others wear well. If he trusts you for your breeches, do not repay his kindness by breaches of trust.
He cuts his cloth economically, and yet much of it goes to waist. ”

“ Now it happened that a certain tailor, who was a stranger, came to that nunnery looking for work, and one of the sisters went forth to talk with him, and she said unto him, “We have our own tailor”; and one of the sisters saw her speaking with him, and she held her peace and informed no one concerning the matter. ”

“ And then the gown sleeves! What a description by Stubbes of the virago-sleeve “tied in and knotted with silk ribbons in love-knots!” It is all wonderful to read.
We learn from these tailors’ bills that tailors’ work embraced far more articles than to-day; in the Orbis Sensualium Pictus, 1659, a tailor’s shop has hanging upon the wall woollen hats, breeches, waistcoats, jackets, women’s cloaks, and petticoats. There are also either long hose or lasts for stretching hose, for they made stockings, leggins, gaiters, buskins; also a number of boxes which look like muff-boxes. ”

“ Tailors were made the butt of much good-natured harmless raillery, often founded on the well-known fact that a tailor is the ninth part of a man. If a person leaves little after a meal, or little material after any work—that is 'tailor's leavings' ”

“ The giant said he did want one, if he could get one who would do everything that he would do himself.
"Anything that you will do, I will do it," said the tailor.
They went to their dinner then, and when they had it eaten, the giant asked the tailor "would it come with him to swallow as much broth as himself, up out of its boiling." The tailor said, "It will come with me to do that, but that you must give me an hour before we begin on it." The tailor went out then, and he got a sheep-skin, and he sewed it up till he made a bag of it, and he slipped it down under his coat. ”

“ When I first knew Barchester there were tailors here could lick any stone-mason in the trade; I say nothing against tailors. But it isn't enough for a man to be a tailor unless he's something else along with it. You're not so fond of tailors that you'll send one up to Parliament merely because he is a tailor. ”

“ I have dealt with the naval tailor here, in order that he might not be separated from his gallant brethren ashore. We will now pass to the civilians; and first, of a brace of worthies who wore their honours meekly, but whose labours deserve no less eulogy than posterity has awarded to them: I allude to the tailors and antiquarians, Stow and Speed. ”

“ 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 for the Mayor of Gloucester. The tailor worked and worked, and he talked to himself: "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. When the snow-flakes came down against the small leaded window- panes and shut out the light, the tailor had done his day's work ”

“ In the meantime, the profits of the beasts of prey who live on these poor fellows—both masters and sweaters—seem as prodigious as their cruelty.
Hear another working tailor on this point:—"In 1844, I belonged to the honourable part of the trade. Our house of call supplied the present show-shop with men to work on the premises. ”

“ We had on one occasion just begun sewing for a tailor who was considered to be of the better class,—that is, one who kept a shop in a fashionable street, and sold a finer and better description of goods than were to be found in the slop-shops,—and while making up a dozen fine vests, were congratulating ourselves on having advanced a step in our profession. ”

“ "But in the course of my wanderings I had the good fortune to save the ninth life of a tailor—tailors having, like cats, nine lives, as you probably know. The fellow was exceedingly grateful, for had he lost that ninth life it would have been the end of him; so he begged permission to furnish me with the stylish costume I now wear. It fits very nicely, does it not?" ”

“ Three poor tailors, who earn little by their trade, take leave of their wives and children, and go out into the world to seek their fortunes. They come to a desert, where there is a mountain in which an enchanter dwells. The mountain is covered with flowers and fruits both in summer and winter, and at mid-day and mid-night these are turned into the finest silver. The eldest tailor fills his bundle and all his pockets with the most beautiful silver flowers and fruits, goes home, throws needle and goose under the table, and becomes a rich merchant. ”