"I have had such an immense number of sweet-hearts!" said the collar, "I could not be in peace! It is true, I was always a fine starched-up gentleman! I had both a bootjack and a hair-comb, which I never used! You should have seen me then, you should have seen me when I lay down!--I shall never forget _my first love_--she was a girdle, so fine, so soft, and so charming, she threw herself into a tub of water for my sake! There was also a widow, who became glowing hot, but I left her standing till she got black again; there was also the first opera dancer, she gave me that cut which I now go with, she was so ferocious! my own hair-comb was in love with me, she lost all her teeth from the heart-ache; yes, I have lived to see much of that sort of thing; but I am extremely sorry for the garter--I mean the girdle--that went into the water-tub. I have much on my conscience, I want to become white paper!" And it became so, all the rags were turned into white paper; but the collar came to be just this very piece of white paper we here see, and on which the story is printed; and that was because it boasted so terribly afterwards of what had never happened to it. It would be well for us to beware, that we may not act in a similar manner, for we can never know if we may not, in the course of time, also come into the rag chest, and be made into white paper, and then have our whole life's history printed on it, even the most secret, and be obliged to run about and tell it ourselves, just like this collar. ------------ THE SHADOW. It is in the hot lands that the sun burns, sure enough!--there the people become quite a mahogany brown, ay, and in the _hottest_ lands they are burnt to negroes. But now it was only to the _hot_ lands that a learned man had come from the cold; there he thought that he could run about just as when at home, but he soon found out his mistake. He, and all sensible folks, were obliged to stay within doors,--the window-shutters and doors were closed the whole day; it looked as if the whole house slept, or there was no one at home. The narrow street with the high houses, was built so that the sunshine must fall there from morning till evening--it was really not to be borne. The learned man from the cold lands--he was a young man, and seemed to be a clever man--sat in a glowing oven; it took effect on him, he became quite meagre--even his shadow shrunk in, for the sun had also an effect on it. It was first towards evening when the sun was down, that they began to freshen up again.