ep.

When he wakened, the air was cold and the day was beginning to grow dark.
Prince Prigio thought he would go down and dine at a tavern in the town,
for no servants had been left with him. But what was his annoyance when
he found that his boots, his sword, his cap, his cloak--all his clothes,
in fact, except those he wore,--had been taken away by the courtiers,
merely to spite him! His wardrobe had been ransacked, and everything
that had not been carried off had been cut up, burned, and destroyed.
Never was such a spectacle of wicked mischief. It was as if hay had been
made of everything he possessed. What was worse, he had not a penny in
his pocket to buy new things; and his father had stopped his allowance of
fifty thousand pounds a month.

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