Back to the castle whirled the King's coach in a bluster of indignation and a whirl of dust, neither of which escaped the stranger. He sneezed violently, but said nothing excepting, "She is the one!"
That evening after he had got him a cheery house and garden, with cozy stables for his horses and tidy lodgings for his servants and a long sunny parlor for his shop, he hung out his sign: "Jerry Jan—Tailor-man." Then, seating himself beneath it and tipping his chair against the wall, he began to sing—
"Thimbles and shears,
Beeswax and thread—
Oh a tailor's a failure
Who can't earn his bread!
Sing Ho for a tailor,
Sing Hey for his trade—
For the coats and the breeches
And men he has made!"
So fresh and clear was his voice, and so rollicking his song, that several folk who were passing stopped to listen. And a strange thing it was truly, a tailor singing, for if tailors did any singing or whistling in those days 'twas for their bills and naught else! The crowd increased and an elderly personage in a velvet cloak put on his spectacles and peered first up at the sign and then down at the merry lad, who was trilling like a lark.
"Well, did one ever hear the like before!" laughed he in his cracked voice. "A tailor making a man! Ho ho—ha ha! Know'st thou not, foolish one, that it takes nine tailors to make a man!"
"Ho ho ha ha!" jeered the crowd. "Nine tailors to make a man!" "Hah!" quoth Jerry Jan. Down came his chair with a thump, and the crowd, which dearly loved a controversy, grew silent to see what would happen. For a moment
