Can you imagine anything more cruel and _unjust_ than this conduct? for it was not the prince's fault that he was so clever. The cruel fairy had made him so. But, even if the prince had been born clever (as may have happened to you), was he to be blamed for that? The other people were just as much in fault for being born so stupid; but the world, my dear children, can never be induced to remember this. If you are clever, you will find it best not to let people know it--if you want them to like you. Well, here was the prince in a pretty plight. Not a pound in his pocket, not a pair of boots to wear, not even a cap to cover his head from the rain; nothing but cold meat to eat, and never a servant to answer the bell. CHAPTER V. _What Prince Prigio found in the Garret_. The prince walked from room to room of the palace; but, unless he wrapped himself up in a curtain, there was nothing for him to wear when he went out in the rain. At last he climbed up a turret-stair in the very oldest part of the castle, where he had never been before; and at the very top was a little round room, a kind of garret. The prince pushed in the door with some difficulty--not that it was locked, but the handle was rusty, and the wood had swollen with the damp. The room was very dark; only the last grey light of the rainy evening came through a slit of a window, one of those narrow windows that they used to fire arrows out of in old times. But in the dusk the prince saw a heap of all sorts of things lying on the floor and on the table. There were two caps; he put one on--an old, grey, ugly cap it was, made of felt. There was a pair of boots; and he kicked off his slippers, and got into _them_. They were a good deal worn, but fitted as if they had been made for him. On the table was a purse with just three gold coins--old ones, too--in it; and this, as you may fancy, the prince was very well pleased to put in his pocket. A sword, with a sword-belt, he buckled about his waist; and the rest of the articles, a regular collection of odds and ends, he left just where they were lying. Then he ran downstairs, and walked out of the hall door. CHAPTER VI. _What Happened to Prince Prigio in Town_. By this time the prince was very hungry. The town was just three miles off; but he had such a royal appetite, that he did not like to waste it on bad cookery, and the people of the royal town were bad cooks. "I wish I were in 'The Bear,' at Gluckstein," said he to himself; for he remembered that there was a very good cook there. But, then, the town was twenty-one leagues away--sixty-three long miles! No sooner had the prince said this, and taken just three steps, than he found himself at the door of the "Bear Inn" at Gluckstein!