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Once upon
a time...
There was once a fine gentleman whose entire worldly
possessions consisted of a boot-jack and a hair-brush; but he had
the most beautiful shirt-collar in the world, and it is about this
that we are going to hear a story.
The shirt-collar was so old that he began to think about marrying;
and it happened one day that he and a garter came into the wash-tub
together.
'Hulloa!' said the shirt-collar, 'never before have I seen anything
so slim and delicate, so elegant and pretty! May I be permitted to
ask your name?'
'I shan't tell you,' said the garter.
'Where is the place of your abode?' asked the shirt-collar.
But the garter was of a bashful disposition, and did not think it
proper to answer.
'Perhaps you are a girdle?' said the shirt-collar, 'an under girdle?
for I see that you are for use as well as for ornament, my pretty
miss!'
'You ought not to speak to me!' said the garter' 'I'm sure I haven't
given you any encouragement!'
'When anyone is as beautiful as you,' said the shirt-collar, 'is not
that encouragement enough?'
'Go away, don't come so close!' said the garter. 'You seem to be a
gentleman!'
'So I am, and a very fine one too!' said the shirt-collar; 'I
possess a boot-jack and a hair-brush!'
That was not true; it was his master who owned these things; but he
was a terrible boaster.
'Don't come so close,' said the garter. 'I'm not accustomed to such
treatment!'
'What affectation!' said the shirt-collar. And then they were taken
out of the wash-tub, starched, and hung on a chair in the sun to
dry, and then laid on the ironing-board. Then came the glowing iron.
'Mistress widow!' said the shirt-collar, 'dear mistress widow! I am
becoming another man, all my creases are coming out; you are burning
a hole in me! Ugh! Stop, I implore you!'
'You rag!' said the iron, travelling proudly over the shirt-collar,
for it thought it was a steam engine and ought to be at the station
drawing trucks.
'Rag!' it said.
The shirt-collar was rather frayed out at the edge, so the scissors
came to cut off the threads.
'Oh!' said the shirt-collar, 'you must be a dancer! How high you can
kick! That is the most beautiful thing I have ever s een! No man can
imitate you!'
'I know that!' said the scissors.
'You ought to be a duchess!' said the shirt-collar. 'My worldly
possessions consist of a fine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a
hair-brush. If only I had a duchy!'
'What! He wants to marry me?' said the scissors, and she was so
angry that she gave the collar a sharp snip, so that it had to be
cast aside as good for nothing.
'Well, I shall have to propose to the hair-brush!' thought the
shirt-collar. 'It is really wonderful what fine hair you have,
madam! Have you never thought of marrying?'
'Yes, that I have!' answered the hair-brush; 'I'm engaged to the
boot-jack!'
'Engaged!' exclaimed the shirt-collar. And now there was no one he
could marry, so he took to despising matrimony.
Time passed, and the shirt-collar came in a rag-bag to the
paper-mill. There was a large assortment of rags, the fine ones in
one heap, and the coarse ones in another, as they should be. They
had all much to tell, but no one more than the shirt-collar, for he
was a hopeless braggart.
'I have had a terrible number of love affairs!' he said. 'They give
me no peace. I was such a fine gentleman, so stiff with starch! I
had a boot-jack and a hair-brush, which I never used! You should
just have seen me then! Never shall I forget my first love! She was
a girdle, so delicate and soft and pretty! She threw herself into a
wash-tub for my sake! Then there was a widow, who glowed with love
for me. But I left her alone, till she became black. Then there was
the dancer, who inflicted the wound which has caused me to be here
now; she was very violent! My own hair-brush was in love with me,
and lost all her hair in consequence. Yes, I have experienced much
in that line; but I grieve most of all for the garter,-I mean, the
girdle, who threw herself into a wash-tub. I have much on my
conscience; it is high time for me to become white paper!'
And so he did! he became white paper, the very paper on which this
story is printed. And that was because he had boasted so terribly
about things which were not true. We should take this to heart, so
that it may not happen to us, for we cannot indeed tell if we may
not some day come to the rag-bag, and be made into white paper, on
which will be printed our whole history, even the most secret parts,
so that we too go about the world relating it, like the
shirt-collar.
The Shirt-Collar
from the Pink Fairy Book
Story Edited
by Andrew Lang |
