The Rainbow Cat was sitting quietly at the door of his house one sunny day. He felt rather bored. Fairyland had been very quiet lately. “I think it’s time I set out on a voyage of adventure,” he said suddenly. “I shall get fat and stupid if I don’t do something of the sort.” So he shut up his house, put a notice on the door to say that he hoped to be back some day, if not sooner, and that letters and parcels were to be thrown down the chimney, and started off on his journey with a nice little wallet of assorted oddments tied to his tail, together with a neat parcel containing his party bow and his dancing-slippers. “For one never knows,” said the Rainbow Cat, “whom one may meet, and it is always well to be prepared for anything.”
He went on and on until he came to the edge of Fairyland, where the clouds begin.
“I may as well pay the cloud-folk a visit,” thought he, and he began climbing up the clouds.
The people who live in the clouds are quite pleasant creatures. They don’t do very much, but being idle doesn’t seem to make them unhappy. They live in splendid cloud-palaces that are even more beautiful on the side which can’t be seen from earth than on the side which can.
Often one may see them drifting across the sky in companies, or driving their pearly chariots, or sailing in their light boats. They live on air, and the only thing they are really afraid of is the Thunder Giant, who, when he gets angry—which he rather often does—goes stamping over the sky, shouting and knocking their houses about.
They greeted the Rainbow Cat kindly and were pleased to see him, for he was an old friend and they were always glad to welcome visitors from Fairyland.
“You have come just at the right moment,” they said. “There is a grand party at the Weather Clerk’s. His eldest son, the North Wind, is to be married to-day to Princess Pearl, the daughter of the King of the Enchanted Isles.”
The Rainbow Cat was pleased that he had brought his party bow and his best shoes. His bag of oddments might also come in useful, he thought.
It was a wonderful wedding.