Prevod

Once upon a time there was a fine gentleman whose entire household possessions consisted of a bootjack and a comb, but he had the most splendid shirt collar in the world, and it is about this collar that we are going to hear a story. The collar was now old enough to think of marrying, and it so happened that it went into the wash with a garter.

"Well!" said the collar. "Never have I seen anyone so slender and so fine, so soft and so dainty. May I ask your name?" "I shan't tell you!" said the garter.

"Where do you belong?" asked the collar. But the garter was very bashful and thought it a rather odd question to answer. "You must be a waistband!" said the collar. "An under-waistband, I mean! I can see that you are both useful and ornamental, little miss!"

"You mustn't speak to me!" said the garter. "I don't think I have given you any encouragement!" "Oh, but when someone is as lovely as you!" said the collar. "That is encouragement enough!"

"Don't come so close!" said the garter. "You look so very masculine!" "I am a fine gentleman, too!" said the collar. "I have a bootjack and a comb!" Now that was not true: they belonged to his master, but he was boasting.

"Don't come near me!" said the garter. "I'm not used to it!" "Prude!" said the collar, and then it was taken out of the wash, starched, and hung over a chair in the sunshine before being laid on the ironing board. Along came the hot iron.

"Madam!" said the collar. "My dear little widow! I'm growing quite warm! I'm becoming a different creature, I'm losing all my creases, you're burning a hole in me! Oh! I offer you my hand!"

"Rag!" said the iron, and passed proudly over the collar, for it fancied itself a steam engine that was to run on the railway and pull carriages.

"Rag!" it said. The collar frayed a little at the edges, and along came the paper scissors to trim off the loose threads. "Oh!" said the collar. "You must be a prima ballerina! How you can stretch your legs! It is the loveliest thing I have ever seen! No human being could do it as you do!"

"I know!" said the scissors. "You deserve to be a countess!" said the collar. "All I have is a fine gentleman, a bootjack, and a comb! If only I had an earldom!"

"Is he proposing?" said the scissors, for she was angry, and she gave him such a mighty snip that he was fit only to be thrown away. "I suppose I must propose to the comb! How remarkable that you still have all your teeth, little miss!" said the collar. "Have you never thought of getting engaged?"

"Why, of course I have!" said the comb. "I'm engaged to the bootjack!" "Engaged!" said the collar. Now there was no one left to propose to, so he decided it was beneath him.

A long time passed, and then the collar found itself in a bin at the paper mill. There was a great gathering of rags there, the fine ones keeping to themselves and the coarse ones to themselves, as is only proper. They all had a great deal to tell, but the collar had the most: he was a thoroughgoing braggart.

"I've had such a dreadful number of sweethearts!" said the collar. "I never had a moment's peace! But then, I was a fine gentleman, and starched, too! I had both a bootjack and a comb, which I never used! You should have seen me in those days, seen me as I lay on my side! I shall never forget my first sweetheart. She was a waistband, so fine, so soft, and so pretty, and she threw herself into a tub of water for my sake! There was a widow, too, who grew red-hot, but I left her standing there until she turned black! Then there was the prima ballerina. She gave me this gash I still bear—she was so fierce! My own comb was in love with me, and lost all her teeth from a broken heart. Yes, I've been through a great deal of that sort of thing! But I feel sorriest for the garter—I mean the waistband—who threw herself into the tub. I have a great deal on my conscience. I could do with being turned into white paper!"

And so it was. All the rags were turned into white paper, but the collar became this very sheet of white paper we see here, with the story printed on it, because afterwards he had boasted so dreadfully of things that had never happened. And we must bear that in mind, and not behave in the same way, for we can never be sure that we, too, may not one day end up in the rag bin and be made into white paper, with our whole story printed on us, even our deepest secrets, and then have to go about telling it ourselves, just like the collar.