consumed; and, turning to Walter, took him by the arm, saying: 'Come! In ten minutes this man will be here.'

She led him into the adjoining bedroom, gave him an embroidered dressing-gown of some soft Indian stuff, and a crimson silk night-cap, which she pulled over his forehead, leaving only a ring of his prematurely gray hair shewing beneath its border, once more kissed him, said: 'Call me when you are ready, and be quick!' and returning to the sitting-room, stood near the door, white, rigid, listening.

In a few minutes, Walter called her, softly, and she went to him. His appearance took her by surprise, justly as she had calculated upon his powers of representation. In the bed, in a judicious half-light, lay an old man, propped up with pillows, which yet seemed to give him no support, sufficient to counteract the exhaustion which pulled him down from off them; his shrunken figure seemed lost in the folds of the Indian dressing-gown, whose embroidered sleeves hung over the large, hirsute hands, which certainly had no appearance of strength. Again she said one word-Perfect!' and placed a chair near the bed, with a little table beside it, on which were writing materials and a hand-bell. Then an idea struck her; she flitted back into the sitting-room, and brought one of the railway books, with the formal inscription on the fly-leaf. There was no reason why it should not lie, open, among the medicine-bottles, left there by the sick man's attendant, and within reach of the sick man's eye. He noted this approvingly, but said nothing. Then, as a step sounded in the corridor, Miriam waved her hand to him, and the next instant had flung herself into an arm-chair beside the fire in the adjoining room, having closed the folding-doors as she passed. She was looking ill and worn, wan with anxiety and fatigue; her hair was in disorder, pushed back from her white face anyhow, but this was all as it should be. She leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes, as she replied to a knock at the door: 'Come in.'

It was a waiter, followed by a short, fat, baldheaded gentleman, whom he announced as Mr Clissold."

CHAPTER XXXVI.-ONCE MORE RISKING IT.

'You are the gentleman from Messrs Ross and Raby, whom Mr St Quentin is expecting, I think?' said Miriam, as Mr Clissold made her a formal bow. Her first glance at the confidential clerk gave her reassuring results. The sole expression of him, in physiognomy and figure, was stolidity. There was no reason to fear his penetrating observation on her appearance, dress, or demeanour. His dull protuberant eyes rested on her without seeming to see her, and not a muscle in his red face moved. If he had found her weeping violently, or practising the last valse step, attired in the brown robe of a Carmelite nun, or arrayed in the tulle and spangles of an opera-dancer, it would have been all the same to Mr Clissold. He was not sent to see her, and in any business, and therefore solely recognisable, sense he did not see her. 'Yes, ma'am,' was his reply.

'I am sorry to say Mr St Quentin is very ill. will inform him that you are here.'

I

Thank you, ma'am. Clissold, of Ross and Raby's.'

'Will you take a seat for a few minutes?' she said, indicating a chair. He complied, without the least change of expression; and Miriam went into the bedroom.

'He has come,' she whispered, bending low towards Walter. 'I don't think there's any risk. If he is like what he looks, he is a mere machine.' 'Send him in,' said Walter; and his sister, in the midst of her strongly restrained excitement and terrible suspense, was conscious that he had some sense of amusement in the playing of his dangerous part.

'Will you have the goodness to come into Mr St Quentin's room?' said Miriam to Mr Clissold, who was sitting upright on his chair, slowly knocking the edges of the soles of his boots together, and neatly fitting the tips of his thumbs and fore-fingers into a heart-shaped pattern. 'I must beg of you to cut this business matter, whatever it may be, as short as possible. He is quite unfit for business, indeed.'

"That,' replied Mr Clissold, standing up all of a piece, and looking straight before him, 'is for Mr St Quentin to decide. I am only sent to receive his instructions.'

Under other circumstances, Miriam would have said 'Brute!' in her own mind, but this particular kind of density served her purpose just then; so she said nothing, but preceded Mr Clissold into the presence of his client.

"This is Mr Clissold,' she said softly. 'I will leave him with you, and shall be in the next room if you want me.-Take this chair, if you please.'

There was no questioning, no speculation in the look which Mr Clissold bestowed upon the client of Messrs Ross and Raby, as he complied. He placed his feet in convenient contiguity for tapping, and arranged his finger and thumb tips into a heart-shaped pattern, while he waited for the sick man to enter upon the business for which he had been sent to Dover.

On

Miriam returned to the arm-chair by the fireside, and tried to remain still; but she could not. the whole, her nerves were wonderfully under her control, but just so far they rebelled. She could almost forget what was actually being done, at least she could free herself to a mechanical thinking of something else, while the great fact was there, unconfessed. And she could rely upon herself to go through with all that must come after, until she should have peace and the full reward; but she could not keep her limbs still. If they were not in motion, they must tremble. So she rose, and paced the room from end to end, but her footstep made no sound. There was a hard and constant ticking in her throat, and her lips were dry. Twice she stopped beside a table where there were water and glasses, and drank water, but still her lips and throat were parched. Sometimes she could hear the harsh monotone of Mr Clissold's business-like voice, but the sound of the client's never reached her.

After some time, the hand-bell was struck, and Miriam answered the summons.

Mr Clissold was writing at the little table. The client was lying back upon the pillows, seemingly much exhausted; and the light in the room was dim, an hour after mid-day. Great gusts of wind and rain swept round the house with a hoarse moaning sound.

'Do you want anything?' asked Miriam of the

client, who signed to Mr Clissold to reply, and turned his head aside, breathing hurriedly.

'We shall require two persons to witness Mr St Quentin's signature to a certain document, ma'am,' said the confidential clerk, in a tone as unmoved and unintelligent as though he had not the smallest notion of the contents of the document then under his hand.

'Very well,' said Miriam. Shall I do for one?'

'Well-no-ma'am; you won't,' answered the confidential clerk deliberately.

'I will send two servants then,' said Miriam; and turning to the sick man, she said gently:

'I suppose you would have preferred Bolton, but, unfortunately, he is gone out, and will not be in for some time. Shall I send two of the hotel servants to you?'

"Yes, yes,' said the client faintly, with the impatience of an invalid about answering questions. Miriam rang the bell, and when the waiter came, she told him what was wanted. Would he and one of his fellow-servants witness a signature for Mr St Quentin? The man assented respectfully. One of the waiters was passing at that moment, and he called him in. He hoped the gentleman was better; they had understood that Dr Ashley did say he was very poorly indeed. Miriam answered the civil inquiry with a quivering lip, and the two men went into the bedroom.

Then came a few minutes, which she felt she could not outlive twice; and the two waiters came out. They looked grave and important, and evidently regarded her with compassionate curiosity.

The gentleman is very bad, surely,' said the older mana model of respectability, who wore shoes cut so low, that it was a wonder he could keep them on. 'If you please, ma'am, are there any orders for dinner?'

Miriam managed to give some orders; and the men, wholly unsuspicious, left the room; and exchanged confidences, in the corridor, to the effect that 'he' was a deal too old for her;' that she was surprising cut up about it; and that she wouldn't find no difficulty in providing herself with No. 2, for she was uncommon nice-looking. Also, that they didn't care how many old parties made their wills at the Grand, and asked them to witness them, if all the lawyers had orders to stand a sovereign apiece, like this one, which he was to have his lunch in the coffee-room, immediate, because he was going up by the express.

Miriam resumed her restless walk, and presently Mr Clissold appeared, coming through the foldingdoors. There was perhaps a shade more deference towards her perceptible in his demeanour, as if he discerned in her a future client of importance to that Ross and Raby in whose interests all his wooden being was merged. Again he made her a formal bow, as she stood still, facing him.

'Is your business completed, sir?" she asked. 'It is, madam,' he replied, buttoning his tight coat, and making the presence of a thick paper in his breast-pocket evident by the process-satisfactorily so. I wish you good-morning, ma'am, and have my best wishes-and those of Messrs Ross and Raby-for Mr St Quentin's speedy recovery.' So saying, he went down to his luncheon in the coffee-room, and thence to London by the express.

Get up, Walter, quick,' said Miriam; the doctor will be here immediately, and Bolton coming

back, and I cannot keep my maid up-stairs much longer.'

Miriam went into the room to him, saying all this in a burst of nervous hurry, which Walter understood as well as she did; but he did not second it. He was weak, worn out, and unable to congratulate himself or her on the wonderful success they had achieved. He had but one wish-to get away; and Miriam saw it. She smothered the pang the consciousness cost her; she thrust back the impulse which would have led her to thank him effusively, and to pour out all the complicated feelings which were in her heart. Not yet,' she thought; that will be for another time. There is too much to be borne and done now, before I can realise that I am free, independent, rich, and safe.'

Walter dressed himself rapidly, and then drank a good deal of wine, while Miriam restored the rooms to their former appearance. This was harder work than the task of their first arrangement. Through all her exultation, all her elation, and the triumph of her success, the over-wrought nerves were beginning to make themselves felt; and when she passed into the dead man's awful presence, to replace the clothes he had worn but yesterday, and the golden gewgaws of his toilet, an irrepressible shudder shook her. Was there any change in the face? Then she remembered, with a start, to have heard that the eyes of the dead should be closed soon after the life has left them, or they will refuse to close. What if those wide open eyes should remain wide open in the coffin, and under the close-packed clay? Miriam knew she must get the remainder of her task done quickly, when such fancies as these were beginning to scare her. He had lain there too long untouched; it was time he were streaked and straightened for the grave. She did not look towards the corpse, but rapidly gave the room the appearance it had worn when her maid had quitted it, poured a portion of the medicine, which would have been administered had the patient lived to take it, into the fire, and rejoined Walter. He did not look up as she came in, and he spoke without raising his eyes.

'Well, Miriam, this is done. Mr Clissold has taken the will with him to London. It is a terrible thing, but I suppose it will be all right.'

I am sure it will be all right, dearest Walter,' said she in her softest tones of persuasion: 'it is bare justice to me; things are different according to circumstances. But we must not talk now. Don't you think, Walter,' she continued, suggesting the very thing her instinct told her he wished, but did not care to say he wished, it would be well for you to go away at once? In all that I have to attend to now, I feel I shall be better alone. You had better get away on foot, out of the town; the rain has ceased, and the wind is going down; so that, if it be proposed to send for you, you may not be found. You shall hear from me to-morrow."

She brought him his coat and hat, and hurried him away. He hardly spoke, but held her tightly in his arms for awhile. Then he left her; and it chanced that he did not meet any one on the staircase; but the porter was opening the front-door to give egress to a gentleman just as Walter set foot in the hall. He paused, and waited until this gentleman had descended the steps, and turned away; and then, having leisurely inspected the state of the barometer, he too went out, and turned

in the opposite direction. The gentleman was Mr Clissold, who, as Walter correctly guessed, had taken the road to the railway station.

'I hope you have had a good sleep, Haines?' said Miriam to her maid, whom she had summoned immediately on Walter's departure. 'Yes, ma'am ; I am quite rested.'

'I am exceedingly tired; and as Mr St Quentin is still sleeping-has been sleeping, indeed, these two hours you shall arrange my hair, and then take my place beside him, while I rest a little, until the doctor comes.'

'Mr St Quentin has had no return of the pain?' 'No return.'

Miriam sat patiently while Mrs Haines brushed her hair, put it away in smooth braids, and changed her dress. She even spoke a little, in a low voice, about the business on which Bolton had gone out, and how much longer it was likely to detain him. Then she lay down on a sofa in her bedroom; and Mrs Haines, having made up the fire, and inspected the medicine-bottles, seated herself behind the bedcurtain, in awful unconscious proximity to the dead

man.

During several minutes of agonising endurance, Miriam lay still, her arm thrown across her eyes, waiting for the scream with which she expected Mrs Haines to announce the discovery which she must soon make. A few minutes of profound silence elapsed, and then Miriam's ear detected the slight rustling of the woman's dress, and strained itself to follow every movement. If the discovery did not come soon, she should not have strength to hold out; there was a dull sickly sense of faintness stealing over her even now, and the palms of her hands were cold and clammy. The next sound was the click of curtain-rings, as the intervening curtain was cautiously withdrawn by the watcher, alarmed by the stillness. Miriam heard the slight creaking of the bedstead as she leaned over the huddled-up figure, with its back towards her, leaned further yet, heard her step behind the head of the bed, and the whisk of her gown against the wall-followed in her imagination the close, rapid examination which ensued; heard her say, with a gasp, 'My God!' and, feeling her approach, shut her eyes firmly, and threw her head back in a perfect imitation of sleep. In a moment, the woman was beside her, shaking her gently by the shoulder. Miriam roused herself, and sat up, meeting her maid's pale, scared face with a start.

‘O madam-I, I fear something dreadful has happened! I-I was frightened at not hearing Mr St Quentin breathe, and I went round to look at him, and, indeed, ma'am, it's no use deceiving you, he is gone!'

'Gone!'

'Yes, ma'am. Come and look at him yourself.' Miriam stood up in a blind, uncertain sort of way, catching at the woman's gown; and at that moment, the sitting-room door opened, and Dr Ashley appeared. Mrs Haines called to him loudly, and he came quickly into the bedroom; but before he could reach her side, or ask an explanation of the looks of the two women, Miriam's hold of her maid relaxed, and she fell in a heap upon the floor.

Ten minutes later, and just as the express train was about to start, a railway official, accompanied by the waiter who had announced Walter's arrival

to his sister, ran along the platform, looking into the carriages, and crying out: Any gentleman of the name of Clint here?" No gentleman answered the appeal; and the train puffed its way out of the station, leaving the official and the waiter looking disconcerted. 'He ain't there,' said the latter; 'I should have known him in a moment.' They turned away talking of the event which had occurred at the Grand; and Mr Clissold, undisturbed by the commotion, went on his prosperous way to London, the bearer of an extension of business to Ross and Raby.

Everything was done most decorously and in perfect order. After the terrible shock Mrs St Quentin had received, Dr Ashley regarded the most absolute quiet as indispensable. In Mrs Haines he found a sensible woman, who did as she was told, and was not over-excited by other people's affairs. Miriam was removed to another floor of the hotel, as soon as she recovered from the merciful fainting-fit which had divided the general attention between the dead and the living, and all the necessary steps were immediately taken. The doctor could not say the lamentable event had exactly surprised him; he had considered Mr St Quentin's condition highly precarious, as he had told Mrs St Quentin, and had no doubt the immediate cause of death was exhaustion consequent upon his having travelled when in an unfit state.

He was very kind to Miriam, and ready to be useful to her in every way, and he admired the clear-headedness and self-control with which she gave her directions, when bodily weakness had passed away. He communicated, by her desire, with Messrs Ross and Raby, informing them of Mr St Quentin's decease, and requesting them to act for her in a professional capacity. He also wrote to Walter Clint, requesting him to come to Dover.

The reply to this letter was written by Florence, and addressed to Miriam. It was constrained, but Miriam knew that was inevitable. Florence's mind would be disturbed by her knowledge of the truth respecting the marriage thus suddenly terminated, and the sense of what that termination ought to be to the young widow. So she said very little on that point, but told Miriam that Walter could not come to her. He had returned from his brief visit to Dover in a highly nervous state, and with a heavy, feverish cold, which had since increased, and rendered his leaving the house impossible. If Miriam wished it, Florence would come to her.

'And leave her darling husband ill! and travel here, to be with me under such circumstances, in her condition, poor child! No; certainly not,' said Miriam, who knew in her heart that the last thing she wished for now was Walter's presence, and the last thing but one the presence of Walter's wife. So she wrote to her sister-in-law that she had found friends and all the help she needed, and she would not have her come on any account. When everything was settled, she would pay them a long visit at the Firs, but it might be a little time first, as she was Mr St Quentin's sole executor, as well as his sole heir; and as the bulk of his papers were in Paris, she might have to return thither direct-that would depend upon the counsel of her legal advisers; 'besides which,' she added, dearest Florence, I feel, though I cannot explain it, that for the present, it is best I should be quite alone.'

No

Not a difficulty presented itself to Miriam. Messrs Ross and Raby conducted her affairs with promptitude and ease. All the customary announcements succeeded that of Mr St Quentin's death. creditors presented themselves, not a claim of any kind was made. Mr St Quentin's property was in order so admirable as to be quite incomprehensible to the legal mind, considering he had never, until the very day of his death, employed a lawyer. Miriam had no difficulty in ascertaining from his few, perfectly arranged papers the exact amount and distribution of the wealth to which she had succeeded. In her capacity of executor, she examined all Mr St Quentin's correspondence. It was not voluminous, and it was exceedingly unIf she still felt any of the curiosity interesting. respecting his former life, and his first wife, which she had once expressed to Florence, it was destined to remain ungratified. There was not a letter, not a memorandum relating to it; the only memento of the past which she found among Mr St Quentin's possessions was a miniature-portrait, in a drawer of an Indian desk he carried about with him, but never used. It represented a fresh, beautiful face, with gray eyes, black hair, and a fine complexion. Miriam had never heard a personal description of the first Mrs St Quentin, but she took it for granted the portrait was hers.

told in the following form in the Chester Courant, a great many years ago: In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the tailors petitioned Her Majesty that their craft, to go abroad into Flanders. The queen a regiment might be raised, composed entirely of assented. She ordered that (as there never was known to be a regiment of tailors before) they should all be mounted on mares. In a short time the regiment was completed, equipped and drilled, reviewed by Elizabeth, and sent off to fight the queen's wars in Flanders. They rushed to the front in battle, fought valiantly, and were every one killed. Her Majesty was greatly affected when she heard this news; but thanked God that she A search for had neither lost man nor horse.' such an incident in Froude or Miss Strickland would probably not be rewarded with success.

Nor is this curious joke (whatever be its origin) confined to England. It is met with in many foreign countries, sometimes varied with another number instead of nine. The Count de la Villamarqué, in his Collection of Breton Ballads, tells us that to this day the peasants of Brittany have a familiar saying, qu'il faut neuf tailleurs pour faire un homme-precisely our formula, which seems to

TAILOR S.

WHо first said that nine tailors make a man? And when did he say it? And why did he say it? And why is this kind of plurality more needed with tailors than with any other handicraftsmen ? Investigators of the origin of old sayings, odd proverbs, slang phrases, nicknames, and queer words, have not left this particular subject unnoticed; and if they have failed in furnishing decisive answers to the above four questions, they have at anyrate accumulated abundant testimony shewing the widely-spread familiarity with this joke.

The modes of applying it, by wits, retailers of wit, and inventors of jokes, are almost endless. A gentleman accepted a challenge from a tailor; they met on the field of fight, when the gentleman said to the challenger: Where are the other eight?' In the days when the trained or train bands were among the institutions of London, a tailor, rated to supply half a man to the band, asked how this could be done; he was answered: By sending four journeymen and an apprentice.' Orator Henley, who was not particular concerning the sources of his jokes, provided he could make a smart hit with them, once said, that as no man puts new cloth upon an old garment,' a tailor cannot be a man. Carlyle, in his Sartor Resartus, says: Does it not stand on record that Queen Elizabeth, on receiving a deputation of eighteen tailors, addressed them with a 66 Good-morning, gentlemen both." And did not the same virago boast that she had 'a cavalry regiment whereof neither horse nor man could be injured; her regiment, namely, of tailors on mares.' This story of the cavalry regiment was

Kingdom. In Hanover, it seems, it requires twelve tailors to make a man; and in some parts of Germany the number is thirteen. In Silesia, through some unexplained peculiarity, the twelve fractions required to make a man are said to be button-makers (Knöpfmacher), instead of tailors.

Now, what are we to think of all this? It must have had some origin. No saying or proverb, story in various languages, and kept alive for some or joke, traceable into several countries, expressed centuries, could have sprung into existence without a cause; and we are left to speculate whether the cause, whatever it may have been, was purely accidental or designedly concocted.

One explanation, presented in multiplied form, is based upon the phrase, 'make a man of him, that is, rendering some substantial service. In Rhenish Prussia the story is told somewhat in the in a warm comfortable room; the season was midfollowing way. Nine tailors were working together winter, and all without was sleet, snow, and bitter cold. A poor, hungry, ill-clad tramp knocked at the workshop door, and solicited alms, saying, he had walked inany a mile, and was faint for lack of warmth and food. The kindly tailors not only shared their meal with him, but sent him away rejoicing with a few groschen in his pocket; and he exclaimed gratefully: 'You have made a man of me!' If nine tailors make a man' in this sense, so much the more to their credit.

But then this gives the honour to Germany, an arrangement which certain English versions of the story certainly do not endorse. Here is one of the versions: In 1742, an orphan boy applied for alms at a fashionable tailor's shop in London, in which some journeymen were employed. His interesting appearance opened the hearts of the benevolent tributed nine shillings for the relief of the little gentlemen of the cloth, who immediately constranger. With this capital, our grateful hero purchased fruit, which he retailed at a profit. Time passed on, and wealth and honour smiled upon the

f

young tradesman; so that when he set up his carriage, instead of troubling the Heralds' College for a crest, he painted the following motto on the panel: 'Nine tailors made me a man.' As far back as 1682, in a book called Grammatical Drollery, one of these stories made its appearance, in a versified form:

There is a proverb which has been of old,
And many men have likewise been so bold,
To the discredit of the taylor's trade,
Nine taylors goe to make a man, they said,
But for their credit I'll unriddle it t' ye:
A draper once fell into povertie;
Nine tailors joined their purses together then,
To set him up, and make him a man agen.

But perhaps the most novel and unexpected attempt at an explanation is one contained in a monthly magazine two or three years ago. The author does not seem to be poking fun at us; he is a clergyman, and follows his chain of reasoning steadily. He adduces the well-known phrase, 'To toll a bell,' as the means of announcing a decease; he states that the original and proper form is 'To tell a knell on a bell;' and in connection with this 'telling' or 'tolling,' he contrives to bring in the nine tailors. In some places, he proceeds to inform us, after a knell, a certain number of distinct bell-strokes are made, to denote whether the deceased was a man, woman, or child; often the numbers were nine for a man, six for a woman, and three for a child. These strokes on the churchbell were listened to and counted by the parishioners or villagers who heard them; and then the knell at its conclusion was said to be 'told' or counted. By degrees this idea became confused or lost, and the participle 'toll'd' was referred to a supposed infinitive to toll,' instead of to its natural infinitive to tell' or 'count.' So much for this little bit of grammar and etymology; and now for the tailors. The strokes 'told' or counted at the end of a knell were (according to the theory now under consideration) called, from their office, 'tellers.' This term was corrupted into tailors,' on account of the sounds coming at the tail or end of the knell. Nine of these being given to announce the death of an adult male, it became intelligible that nine tellers or tailors denote or make a man, an adult male-from which we may slide easily into Nine tailors make a man.' This writer is certainly correct on one point, telling as having the same meaning as counting, reckoning the number of strokes. When Richard III. was in his tent at Bosworth Field, and the clock strikes, he said: 'Tell the clock there;' that is, 'count the hours.'

And now, which theory will the reader acceptthe making a man by befriending him in the time of need; or numbering the strokes on a bell to denote the death of a man, as distinguished from a woman or a child? In either case, Nine tailors make a man' may be accepted without any discredit to this useful class of handicraftsmen.

There is, however, another set of old jokes which come heavily on the fraternity in regard to honesty. In bygone times, the tailor was wont to go to the houses of his customers, and make garments of cloth which they had purchased; the list and small cuttings were acknowledged to be his perquisite; but he was constantly accused of appropriating other portions of the cloth. Sometimes the tailor worked in his own shop, but still upon

287

materials which had been furnished to him; and a like unfavourable accusation was often hurled at him. The jokes seem to point to a period when the tailor was usually a workman plying the needle for a customer; the master or employer, if there were one, being a draper, and often so called. In Flanders, there is a saying which separates a debt to a tailor from all others, as an 'honourable debt,' one that need not be paid in a hurry, as the creditor has already found some means or other to pay himself, partially if not wholly. Massinger says in one of his plays:

Were one of ye, knights of the needle,
Paid by the ninth part of his customers,
Once in nine years, the ninth part of his bill,
He would be nine times overpaid

-an almost appalling example of the results of repeatedly dividing by nine. A cruel old saying is, 'Put a tailor, a weaver, and a miller into a sack; and the first that puts his head out is a thief.' The tailor's cabbage has not escaped the wits. The word seems to have originated in the wrongful appropriation of cloth, above adverted to. But then, why cabbage?' What does the word mean? Some think it may have come from 'cabotage,' a kind of smuggling; one traces it to 'cablesh,' a name in some countries for windfalls, fruit that comes to you by luck and not by choice. Phillips, in his History of Cultivated Vegetables, tells us that among the brassica tribe, comprising the cabbage, cole, cauliflower, broccoli, &c., 'cabbage' is really the proper name for the firm head or ball that is formed by the leaves turning close over another; insomuch that the cole has cabbaged' has a definite meaning in connection with the growth of the vegetable. He adds: 'From thence arose the cant word applied to tailors, who formerly worked at the houses of their customers, where they were often accused of "cabbaging"—that is, rolling up good cloth with the waste or perquisites.'

one

The stories about tailors are numerous, comical, and in many cases evidently made up for the purpose. After the battle of Waterloo, when the treaty of peace reopened communication between England and France, two master tailors from the West End went over to Paris to pick up the fashions. They went to a good hotel, and ordered breakfast. Certainement, messieurs, tout à l'heure,' said the obliging garçon. Upon which, looking at each other, one of them exclaimed: "Two tailors! Are we discovered already?' The late Daniel O'Connell, addressing a large meeting once in a public building, was interrupted by a noise among the auditors, who protested against the conduct of a man who obstinately persisted in standing up and interrupting the view of those who were sitting. 'Pray, let the worthy gentleman have his way,' said O'Connell; 'he's a tailor, and wants to rest himself.' This sally at once brought down the obnoxious individual to his seat-tailor or not. Desbois, in his Recueil de Bons Mots, tells a story of a tailor who grew rich, lived in style, wished the world to forget what he had been, and had a favourite and comfortable seat at church. A lady on one occasion asked if he could kindly make room for her. He discourteously refused; whereupon she remarked: 'I forgot; you have been accustomed to take up a good deal of room in sitting.' In Paisley churchyard there is a tomb