There was once a Darning-needle who thought herself so fine that she believed she was an embroidery-needle. ‘Take great care to hold me tight!’ said the Darning-needle to the Fingers who were holding her. ‘Don’t let me fall! If I once fall on the ground I shall never be found again, I am so fine!’

‘It is all right!’ said the Fingers, seizing her round the waist.

‘Look, I am coming with my train!’ said the Darning-needle as she drew a long thread after her; but there was no knot at the end of the thread.

The Fingers were using the needle on the cook’s shoe. The upper leather was unstitched and had to be sewn together.

‘This is common work!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I shall never get through it. I am breaking! I am breaking!’ And in fact she did break. ‘Didn’t I tell you so!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I am too fine!’

‘Now she is good for nothing!’ said the Fingers; but they had to hold her tight while the cook dropped some sealing-wax on the needle and stuck it in the front of her dress.

‘Now I am a breast-pin!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I always knew I should be promoted. When one is something, one will become something!’ And she laughed to herself; you can never see when a Darning-needle is laughing. Then she sat up as proudly as if she were in a State coach, and looked all round her.

‘May I be allowed to ask if you are gold?’ she said to her neighbour, the Pin. ‘You have a very nice appearance, and a peculiar head; but it is too small! You must take pains to make it grow, for it is not everyone who has a head of sealing-wax.’ And so saying the Darning-needle raised herself up so proudly that she fell out of the dress, right into the sink which the cook was rinsing out.

‘Now I am off on my travels!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘I do hope I sha’n’t get lost!’ She did indeed get lost.

‘I am too fine for this world!’ said she as she lay in the gutter; ‘but I know who I am, and that is always a little satisfaction!’

And the Darning-needle kept her proud bearing and did not lose her good-temper.

All kinds of things swam over her — shavings, bits of straw, and scraps of old newspapers.

‘Just look how they sail along!’ said the Darning-needle. ‘They don’t know what is underneath them! Here I am sticking fast! There goes a shaving thinking of nothing in the world but of itself, a mere chip! There goes a straw — well, how it does twist and twirl, to be sure! Don’t think so much about yourself, or you will be knocked against a stone. There floats a bit of newspaper. What is written on it is long ago forgotten, and yet how proud it is! I am sitting patient and quiet. I know who I am, and that is enough for me!’

One day something thick lay near her which glittered so brightly that the Darning-needle thought it must be a diamond. But it was a bit of bottle-glass, and because it sparkled the Darning-needle spoke to it, and gave herself out as a breast-pin.

‘No doubt you are a diamond?’

‘Yes, something of that kind!’ And each believed that the other was something very costly; and they both said how very proud the world must be of them.

‘I have come from a lady&rs............