As he spoke, the cloak bounded forward and went skimming through the air, faster than the very fastest railway train.
"Gee-up, gee-up!" cried Prince Dolor in great excitement. "This is as good as riding a horse," and tossed his head back to meet the fresh breeze, and pulled his coat-collar up and his hat down, as he felt the wind grow keener and colder, colder than anything he had ever known.
"What does it matter, though?" said he. "I'm a boy, and boys ought not to mind anything."
Still, by-and-by he began to shiver, and, as he had come away without his dinner, grew frightfully hungry. The sunshine changed to rain, and he got soaked through and through in a very few minutes.
"Shall I turn back?" meditated he. "Suppose I say, 'Abracadabra?'"
Here he stopped, for already the cloak gave a lurch as if it were expecting to be sent home.
"No—I can't go back! I must go forward and see the world, but oh! if I had but the shabbiest old rug to shelter me from the rain, or the driest morsel of bread and cheese, just to keep me from starving! Still, I don't much mind, I'm a prince and ought to be able to stand anything. Hold on, cloak, we'll make the best of it."
No sooner had he said this than he felt stealing over his knees something warm and soft; in fact, a most beautiful bearskin, which folded itself round him and cuddled him up as closely as if he had been the cub of the kind old mother-bear that once owned it. Then feeling in his pocket, which suddenly stuck out in a marvelous way, he found, not exactly bread and cheese, nor even sandwiches, but a packet of the most delicious food he had ever tasted. He ate his dinner until he grew so thirsty he did not know what to do.
"Couldn't I have just one drop of water, if it wouldn't trouble you too much, kindest of godmothers?"
He considered this a difficult request to grant for he was so far from the ground that he could not expect to find a well. He forgot one thing—the rain. While he spoke, it came on in another wild burst, as if the clouds had poured themselves out in a passion of crying, wetting him certainly, but leaving behind in a large glass vessel which he had never noticed before, enough water to quench the thirst of two or three boys at least. And it was so fresh, so pure—as water from the clouds always is, that he drank it with the greatest delight.