THERE was once a handsome gentleman whose whole effects consisted of a Bootjack and a hair-comb,but he had the finest Shirt Collar in the world, and about this Shirt Collar we will tell a story.

The Collar was now old enough to think of marrying,and it happened that he was sent to the wash together with a Garter.

“My word! exclaimed the Shirt Collar.“I have never seen anything so slender and delicate, so charming and genteel. May I ask your name?”

“I shall not tell you that,”said the Garter.

“Where is your home?”asked the Shirt Collar.

But the Garter was of rather a modest disposition,and it seemed such a strange question to answer.

“I presume you are a girdle?”said the Shirt Collar----“a sort of under girdle? I see that you are useful as well as ornamental,my little lady.”

“You are not to speak to me,”said the Garter.“I have not, I think, given you any occasion to do so.”

“Oh! when one is as beautiful as you are, ”cried the Shirt Collar,“that is occasion enough.”

“Go!”said the Garter;“don't come so near me:you look to me quite like a man.”

“I am a fine gentleman,too,”said the Shirt Collar.“I possess a bootjack and a hair-comb.”

And that was not true at all, for it was his master who owned these things, but he was boasting.

“Don't come too near me,”said the Garter;“I'm not used to that.”

“Affectation!”cried the Shirt Collar.

And then they were taken out of the wash, and starched, and hung over a chair in the sunshine, and then laid on the ironing-board; and now came the hot Iron.

“Mrs. Widow!”said the Shirt Collar,“little Mrs.Widow, I'm getting quite warm; I'm being quite changed; I'm losing all my creases; you're burning a hole in me! Ugh! I propose to you.”

“You old rag!”said the Iron, and rode proudly over the Shirt Collar, for it imagined that it was a steam boiler, and that it ought to be out on the railway, dragging carriages. “You old rag!”said the Iron,

The Shirt Collar was a little frayed at the edges,therefore the Paper Scissors came to smooth away the frayed places.

“Ho, ho!”said the Shirt Collar;“I presume you are a first-rate dancer. How you can point your toes! No one in the world can do that like you.”

“I know that,”said the Scissors.

“You deserve to be a countess,”sa............