Bixby is excited and rushes to her husband's office after he has collected it. Bixby goes to the pawn shop to redeem the ticket and claim the item it stands for. He decides it would be best if he redeemed the ticket, in spite of Mrs. She tells her husband she found the pawn ticket in the taxi. The ticket guarantees her right to claim the coat at any time. The pawnbroker gives her a pawn ticket, which she declines to mark with any kind of name or description. On her return to New York she visits a pawnbroker and pawns the coat for $50.

Bixby is intent on keeping the coat and devises a plan. Bixby is in despair as she reads the letter: her aunt is far too poor to be given credit for the gift. Bixby they can no longer see each other, and suggests she tell her husband the mink coat is a Christmas present from her aunt. Bixby receives a package from the Colonel containing a letter and an expensive gift: a dark mink coat. Bixby travels from New York City to Baltimore, supposedly visiting her elderly aunt in fact, she is having an affair with the Colonel.Īs she is preparing to leave after one of these visits to Baltimore, Mrs. Bixby and her dentist husband live in a New York apartment. She hopes to sneak the coat into her home without arousing her husband's suspicions, but soon discovers her husband has his own plans. The story is Dahl's variation on a popular anecdote dating back at least to 1939: a married woman receives a glamorous mink coat from a man with whom she had an affair. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat' is a short story by Roald Dahl that first appeared in the 1959 issue of Nugget.

Her Christmas Spy by Mink