The False Collar

Once upon a time there lived a fine gentleman. All he owned was a bootjack and a hair comb, but he had the most beautiful false collars in the world. This story is about one of those collars.

The collar was so old that it began to think about getting married. One day it happened to be washed in the same tub as a garter.

“My word!” said the collar. “I have never seen anything so slender and fine, so soft and neat. May I ask your name?”

“I won’t tell you!” said the garter.

“Where do you live?” asked the collar.

But the garter was so shy and modest that she thought it was a strange question to answer.

“You must be a belt,” said the collar, “an inside belt, I mean. I can see you are both useful and decorative, my dear young lady.”

“Please don’t speak to me,” said the garter. “I haven’t given you any reason.”

“Oh, but when one is as pretty as you,” said the collar, “that is reason enough.”

“Don’t come so close, I beg you!” said the garter. “You look just like those menfolk.”

“I am a fine gentleman too,” said the collar. “I own a bootjack and a hair comb.”

But that wasn’t true – it was his master who owned them. The collar was just boasting.

“Don’t come near me,” said the garter. “I’m not used to it.”

“What a prude!” exclaimed the collar. Then it was taken out of the washing tub. It was starched, hung over a chair in the sun to dry, and then laid on the ironing blanket. Soon the warm flat iron came.

“Dear lady!” said the collar. “Dear widow lady! I feel so hot. I am completely changed. I am beginning to unfold. You’ll burn a hole in me. Oh! I offer you my hand in marriage!”

“Rag!” said the flat iron, and it glided proudly over the collar. The iron fancied it was a steam engine that pulled trains on the railroad. “Rag!” it said again.

The collar’s edge was a bit jagged, so the long scissors came to cut off the rough parts.

“Oh!” said the collar. “You must be the best opera dancer. How well you stretch your legs! That is the most graceful thing I have ever seen. No one can copy you.”

“I know,” said the scissors.

“You deserve to be a baroness,” said the collar. “All I have is a fine gentleman, a bootjack, and a hair comb. If only I had a barony to offer!”

“Are you asking for my hand?” said the scissors. She was angry, and without another word she SNIPPED him right across. Then the collar was ruined.

“Now I suppose I have to ask the hair comb,” said the collar. “It’s amazing how well you keep your teeth, Miss. Have you ever thought of getting engaged?”

“Yes, of course I have,” said the hair comb. “I am engaged – to the bootjack!”

“Engaged!” cried the collar. Now there was no one left to court, so he turned up his nose at her.

A long time passed. Then the collar ended up in the rag bin at the paper mill. There was a big crowd of rags – fine ones on one side, coarse ones on the other, just as it should be. They all had a lot to say, but the collar talked the most, because he was a real braggart.

“I have had so many sweethearts!” said the collar. “I couldn’t have any peace! It’s true, I was always a fine, starched gentleman. I owned a bootjack and a hair comb, though I never used them! You should have seen me back then, when I was lying down!

I will never forget my first love – she was a belt, so fine, so soft, so charming! She threw herself into a tub of water for my sake! Then there was a widow who became red hot, but I left her standing until she turned black again.

There was also the first opera dancer – she gave me this cut I still have. She was so fierce! My own hair comb was in love with me, and she lost all her teeth from a broken heart. Yes, I have seen a lot of that sort of thing!

But I am very sorry about the garter – I mean the belt – who jumped into the water tub. I have a heavy conscience. I want to become white paper!”

And so it happened. All the rags were made into white paper. And this collar became the very piece of white paper that you see here, on which this story is printed. That was because he boasted so terribly afterward about things that had never happened to him.

It would be good for us to be careful, so that we don’t behave the same way. For we never know – we might one day end up in the rag bin and be made into white paper, and then our whole life story will be printed on it, even the most secret parts, and we will have to run around telling it ourselves, just like this collar.