It was a cold winter that year. People shrank up in the chill and grew smaller, all except those who had furs. Judge Richardt had a big fur coat. It almost belonged, moreover, to his official position, for he was managing director of a brand-new company. His old friend Dr. Henck, on the contrary, had no fur coat: he had instead a pretty wife and three children. Dr. Henck was thin and pale. Some people grow fat with marriage, others grow thin. Dr. Henck had grown thin, and remained so on this particular Christmas Eve. I’ve had a bad year this year, said Dr. Henck to himself, as he was on his way to his old friend John Richardt to borrow money. It was three o’clock of Christmas Eve, just the hour of the mid-day twilight.--I’ve had a very bad year. My health is fragile, not to say broken. My patients, on the contrary, have picked up, almost the whole lot of them, I see them so seldom nowadays. Presumably I’m going to die soon. My wife thinks so, too; I’ve seen it in her looks. In such a case it would be desirable that the event should happen before the end of January, when the cursed life insurance premium has to be paid. By the time he had reached this point in the process of his thoughts he found himself on the corner of Government and Harbor Street. As he was about to pass the street-crossing in order to proceed down Government Street, he slipped on a smooth sleigh track and fell, and at the same moment a sleigh drove up at full speed. The driver swore and the horse instinctively turned aside, but Dr. Henck received a blow on the shoulder from one of the runners, and furthermore a screw or nail or some similar projection caught his overcoat and tore a big rent in it. People gathered around him. A policeman helped him to his feet, a young girl brushed the snow off him, an old woman gesticulated over his torn overcoat in a way that indicated she would have liked to sew it up on the spot if she could, and a prince of the royal house, who happened to be going by, picked up his cap and set it on his head. So everything was all right again except the coat. “Lord! what a sight you are, Gustav,” said Judge Richardt, when Henck came up to his office. “Yes, I’ve been run over,” answered Henck. “That’s just like you,” said Richardt, laughing good-humoredly. “But you can’t go home like that. You may gladly have the loan of my fur coat, and I’ll send a boy home after my ulster.” “Thanks,” said Dr. Henck. And after he had borrowed the hundred krona he needed, he added, “We shall be glad to have you for dinner.” Richardt was a bachelor and was accustomed to spend Christmas Eve with Henck. * * * * * On the way home Henck was in a better humor than he had been for a long time.