The Draper's Progress

Being a morality tale drawn from recent events in British politics.


Once upon a time there was a Draper.



After an infamous youth, where he was an Understatement to the Gang of Seventeen, the Draper went off to sea and to the Colonies.



The now reformed Draper returned some years later. Fashioning a Degree from a famous Colonial place of learning, the Draper came back to London.

He became a most notable Draper.



Indeed, he quickly became lionised by Society and by the Polity.



The Draper became a member of the Group of Six that met each Wednesday for Strategy and Forward Thoughts.



In particular, the Draper became a friend of the great but poisonous Master Brideson, the leading Intriguer though mysteriously aged only 34.



Buoyed by this success, the Draper began to write about drapery. First, he wrote his Handbook to the Art of Drapery.



But he also wrote an awful and unkind Commendation of Master Brideson's nasty note on the drapery of the wives of the Tory Toffs.

Sadly, this dire note, and the Draper's Commendation, fell into the hands of a most scurrilous Libertine with the gunpowder politics of the century before.



This Commendation caused upset and wailing with the cabal of Tory Toffs.



So the Draper was jostled in his shaky Seat of Political Influence.



And he was finally ejected from this treacherous Seat.



The Draper is now perhaps less popular in Polite Society.



Leaving him only with the bills from his Most Admirable Attorneys.



The End?


With profound apologies to William Hogarth.