old, tossing it
contemptuously away. "It has no smell, and the hard petals prick my
nose!"

The child now sat down to table, but was so occupied with her grief for
the blighted roses that she did not even notice the wonderful
transmutation of her china bowl. Perhaps this was all the better; for
Marygold was accustomed to take pleasure in looking at the queer
figures, and strange trees and houses, that were painted on the
circumference of the bowl; and these ornaments were now entirely lost in
the yellow hue of the metal.

Midas, meanwhile, had poured out a cup of coffee, and, as a matter of
course, the Coffee-pot, whatever metal it may have been when he took it
up, was gold when he set it down. He thought to himself, that it was
rather an extravagant style of splendour, in a king of his simple
habits, to breakfast off a service of gold, and began to be puzzled with
the difficulty of keeping his treasures safe. The cupboard and the
kitchen would no longer be a secure place of deposit for articles so
valuable as golden bowls and coffee-pots.

Amid these thoughts, he lifted a spoonful of coffee to his lips, and,
sipping it, was astonished to perceive that, the instant his lips
touched the liquid, it became molten gold, and, the next moment,
hardened into a lump!

"Ha!" exclaimed Midas, rather aghast.

"What is the matter, father?" asked little Marygold, gazing at him, with
the tears still standing in her eyes.

"Nothing, child, nothing!" said Midas. "Eat your milk, before it gets
quite cold."

He took one of the nice little trouts on his plate, and, by way of
experiment, touched its tail with his finger. To his horror, it was
immediately transmuted from an admirably fried brook trout into a
gold-fish, though not one of those gold-fishes which people often keep
in glass globes, as ornaments for the parlour. No; but it was really a
metallic fish, and looked as if it had been very cunningly made by the
nicest goldsmith in the world. Its little bones were now golden wires;
its fins and tail were thin plates of gold; and there were the marks of
the fork in it, and all the delicate, frothy appearance of a nicely
fried fish, exactly imitated in metal. A very pretty piece of work, as
you may suppose; only King Midas, just at that moment, would much rather
have had a real trout in his dish than this elaborate and valuable
imitation of one.

"I don't quite see," thought he to himself, "how I am to get any
breakfast!"