Midas paused and meditated. He felt sure that this stranger, with
such a golden luster 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.
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 bright and radiant, 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 fancy. 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, waving his hand
in token of farewell. "To-morrow, at sunrise, you will find
yourself gifted with the Golden Touch."
The figure of the stranger then became exceedingly bright, and
Midas involuntarily closed his eyes. On opening them again, he
beheld only one yellow sunbeam in the room, and, all around him,
the glistening of the precious metal which he had spent his
life in hoarding up.