But Nutkin sang as rudely as ever —

“Old Mr. B! Riddle-me-ree!

Flour of England, fruit of Spain,

Met together in a shower of rain;

Put in a bag tied round with a string,

If you’ll tell me this riddle, I’ll give you a ring!”

Which was ridiculous of Nutkin, because he had not got any ring to give to Old Brown.

The other squirrels hunted up and down the nut bushes; but Nutkin gathered robin’s pincushions off a briar bush, and stuck them full of pine-needle pins.

On the fifth day the squirrels brought a present of wild honey; it was so sweet and sticky that they licked their fingers as they put it down upon the stone. They had stolen it out of a bumble bees’ nest on the tippitty top of the hill.

But Nutkin skipped up and down, singing —

“Hum-a-bum! buzz! buzz! Hum-a-bum buzz!

As I went over Tipple-tine

I met a flock of bonny swine;

Some yellow-nacked, some yellow backed!

They were the very bonniest swine

That e’er went over Tipple-tine.”

Old Mr. Brown turned up his eyes in disgust at the impertinence of Nutkin.

But he ate up the honey!

The squirrels filled their little sacks with nuts.

But Nutkin sat upon a big flat rock, and played ninepins with a crab apple and green fir-cones.

On the sixth day, which was Saturday, the squirrels came again for the last time; they brought a new-laid egg in a little rush basket as a last parting present for Old Brown.

But Nutkin ran in front laughing, and shouting —

“Humpty Dumpty lies in the beck,

With a white counterpane round his neck,

Forty doctors and forty wrights,

Cannot put Humpty Dumpty to rights!”

Now old Mr. Brown took an interest in eggs; he opened one eye and shut it again. But still he did not speak.

Nutkin became more and more impertinent —

“Old Mr. B! Old Mr. B!

Hickamore, Hackamore,

on the King’s kitchen door;

All the King’s horses,

and all the King’s men,

Couldn’t drive Hickamore, Hackamore,

Off the King’s kitchen door!”

Nutkin danced up and down like a sunbeam; but still Old Brown said nothing at all.

Nutkin began again —

“Arthur O’Bower has broken his band,

He comes roaring up the land!

The King of Scots with all his power,

Cannot turn Arthur of the Bower!”

Nutkin made a whirring noise to sound like the wind, and he took a running jump right onto the head of Old Brown!…

Then all at once there was a flutterment and a scufflement and a loud “Squeak!”

The other squirrels scuttered away into the bushes.

When they came back very cautiously, peeping round the tree – there was Old Brown sitting on his door-step, quite still, with his eyes closed, as if nothing had happened.

*     *     *     *     *

But Nutkin was in his waistcoat pocket!

This looks like the end of the story; but it isn’t.

Old Brown carried Nutkin into his house, and held him up by the tail, intending to skin him; but Nutkin pulled so very hard that his tail broke in two, and he dashed up the staircase, and escaped out of the attic window.

And to this day, if you meet Nutkin up a tree and ask him a riddle, he will throw sticks at you, and stamp his feet and scold, and shout —

“Cuck-cuck-cuck-cur-r-r-cuck-k-k!”



The End

“I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass;

And entertain a score or two of tailors.”

Richard III

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



The Tailor of

Gloucester



( 1903 )

In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets – when gentlemen wore ruffles, and goldlaced 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 lute-string; 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 threadbare 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.

One bitter cold day near Christmas-time 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.

The tailor worked and worked, and he talked to himself. He measured the silk, and turned it round and round, and trimmed it into shape with his shears; the table was all littered with cherry-coloured snippets.

“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.