mindwhere, were kept hustling with orders passed over to them. For, you see, all the Courtiers following the King's example had come to be fitted out in new cloaks and breeches, and from the nods and winks and knowing glances they exchanged whenever they met, I cannot help thinking that all was not well.
Honest trade folk, attracted by Jerry's prices, came too; the blacksmith himself ordered a Sunday coat with iron buttons. The busier he grew, the cheerier waxed the new tailor of Nevermindwhere. Above the snipping and whirring in the shop rose his merry voice, and so popular did his songs become that they spread from one end of the Kingdom to the other.
"We need the merchants and the sailors,
But more than all we need the tailors!"
hummed the housewives over their work, and even the Courtiers whistled the air of "A tailor's a failure who can't earn his bread," though when it came to the King's ears 'twas promptly hushed up.
As for Crooks, Stitchem and Rowley, they were new men, copying Jerry in everything and acquiring a dignity that sat upon them as oddly as peacocks' tails upon hens. But why, considering the insolence of those wretched Courtiers, did Jerry when he was alone keep fingering a certain little handkerchief that he always carried next to his heart? And why, considering the insolence of that wretched tailor, did the Princess discover so many errands in the neighborhood of Jerry's shop?
Well, well—however that may be—it chanced that the King's cloak, My Lord of Toppertush's cloak, the breeches, vests, satin waistcoats, and such, ordered by the Courtiers, were finished upon the same day. Accordingly Jerry's footman buttoned up his purple coat, mounted the box of Jerry's handsome carriage, and drove off to the palace. Having delivered each gay box to its still gayer owner the
