"AND THANKS FOR COMING TO SEE ME. WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

"Oh!" answered the lad, "I only wished to ask you to be so good as to
let me have back that meal you took from me on the safe steps, for we
haven't much to live on; and if you're to go on snapping up the morsel
we have there'll be nothing for it but to starve."

"I haven't got your meal," said the North Wind; "but if you are in such
need, I'll give you a cloth which will get you everything you want, if
you only say, 'Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good
dishes!'"

With this the lad was well content. But, as the way was so long he
couldn't get home in one day, he turned into an inn on the way; and when
they were going to sit down to supper, he laid the cloth on a table
which stood in the corner and said:

"Cloth spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes."

He had scarce said so before the cloth did as it was bid; and all who
stood by thought it a fine thing, but most of all the landlady. So,
when all were fast asleep, at dead of night, she took the lad's cloth,
and put another in its stead, just like the one he had got from the
North Wind, but which couldn't so much as serve up a bit of dry bread.

So, when the lad woke, he took his cloth and went off with it, and that
day he got home to his mother.

"Now," said he, "I've been to the North Wind's house, and a good fellow
he is, for he gave me this cloth, and when I only say to it, 'Cloth,