at were there, he turned again
to Midas.

"You are a wealthy man, friend Midas!" he observed. "I doubt whether
any other four walls, on earth, contain so much gold as you have
contrived to pile up in this room."

"I have done pretty well,--pretty well," answered Midas, in a
discontented tone. "But, after all, it is but a trifle, when you
consider that it has taken me my whole life to get it together. If one
could live a thousand years, he might have time to grow rich!"

"What!" exclaimed the stranger. "Then you are not satisfied?"

Midas shook his head.

"And pray what would satisfy you?" asked the stranger. "Merely for the
curiosity of the thing, I should be glad to know."

[Illustration: THE STRANGER APPEARING TO MIDAS]

Midas paused and meditated. He felt a presentiment that this stranger,
with such a golden lustre in his good-humored smile, had come
hither with both the power and the purpose of gratifying his utmost
wishes. Now, therefore, was the fortunate moment, when he had but to
speak, and obtain whatever possible, or seemingly impossible thing, it
might come into his head to ask. So he thought, and thought, and
thought, and heaped up one golden mountain upon another, in his
imagination, without being able to imagine them big enough. At last, a
bright idea occurred to King Midas. It seemed really as bright as the
glistening metal which he loved so much.

Raising his head, he looked the lustrous stranger in the face.

"Well, Midas," observed his visitor, "I see that you have at length
hit upon something that will satisfy you. Tell me your wish."

"It is only this," replied Midas. "I am weary of collecting my
treasures with so much trouble, and beholding the heap so diminutive,
after I have done my best. I wish everything that I touch to be
changed to gold!"

The stranger's smile grew so very broad, that it seemed to fill the
room like an outburst of the sun, gleaming into a shadowy dell, where
the yellow autumnal leaves--for so looked the lumps and particles of
gold--lie strewn in the glow of light.

"The Golden Touch!" exclaimed he. "You certainly deserve credit,
friend Midas, for striking out so brilliant a conception. But are you
quite sure that this will satisfy you?"

"How could it fail?" said Midas.

"And will you never regret the possession of it?"

"What could induce me?" asked Midas. "I ask nothing else, to render me
perfectly happy."

"Be it as you wish, then," replied the stranger