JUNGLE TAILORS, SERVANTS AND COURTS. 
line of chalk, and there are the trousers all read^ 
for sewing ! Here is a hint to our modern fashion- 
able tailors in the old country, who spend so much 
time, and trouble, in taking your measure ” Mari- 
kar does not know what taking your measure is, 
or if he does, he can’t do it, it is not his custom. 
Only English tailors do that ” ; he is a proper tailor. 
In uiaking the coat it is the same, and requires some 
tact and experience in marking out the back and 
shoulders, but most of oui readers are aware that a 
Ceylon jungle coat is no difficult shape to mark and 
cut out it : he can just cut out to any ? and if it does 
not fit, no matter, so long as it is loose and easy. 
With the itinerant jungle tailor it is not a question 
of fitting, fashion, or usage, but what the wearer’s 
pleasure is, as to how they are to be made. He 
merely requires instructions how to make them, on a 
sample pattern, and if any improvement on pattern is 
desired, it must be explained, as “only a little longer 
in the legs, an inch shorter round the waist-band, a 
good half-inch wider in the sleeves. ” He never even 
presumes to have any opinion of his own in the mat- 
ter, not even advice or recommendation, and if you 
ask it he will only shrug his shoulders, and say, 
“ Whatever master likes best is best ; what is master’s 
custom ? ” This is no unimportant dodge on his part, 
for if after they are made you should find any fault 
with the making, he will calmly say that he was told 
to make them so. It is not his fault, no gentleman 
ever found fault with his work before. The fact is 
he cannot cut out any article of clothing without an 
exact pattern to cut from and if given any extra in- 
structions the chances are that he will spoil your 
cloth. The cutting out, is all finished, and he asks for 
some mats ; these he spreads out in a corner of the 
verandah, as near to the kitchen door as he conveniently 
can, for the itinerant tailor has a great love for pop- 
' ping in and out of the kitchen. He can’t smoke at his 
work, that would be beyond all bounds of propriety, 
besides most disrespectful to his ejnployer, and so he 
seizes the opportunity, whenever master goes out, to 
bolt into the kitchen, and there remain, smoking, talk- 
ing, and drinking coffee at master’s expense, until the 
kitchen cooly, who has been ostensibly cutting fire- 
wood outside, but in point of fact, only watching the 
movements of master, comes running in and says, 
“ Master coming : ” The tailor throws down his half 
finished cheroot, leaves the tin pannikin of coffee un- 
finished, makes a rush into the verandah squats down, 
and commences to saw with extraordinary vigour just 
as master steps into the house who either believes 
or not according to his experience that the tailor has 
