58 THE GOLDEN TOUCH.

tinted clouds of sunset, he wished that they were real
gold, and that they could be squeezed safely into his
strong box. When little Marygold ran to met him, with
_ abunch of buttercups and dandelions, he used to say,
“Poh, poh, child! If these flowers were as golden as
they look, they would be worth the plucking !.”

And yet, in his earlier days, before he was so entirely
possessed of this insane desire for riches, King Midas
had shown a great taste for flowers. He had planted
a garden, in which grew the biggest and beautifullest
and sweetest roses that any mortal ever saw or smelt.
These roses were still growing in the garden, as large, as
lovely, and as fragrant, as when Midas used to pass whole
hours in gazing at them, and inhaling their perfume.
But now, if he looked at them at all, it was only to cal-
culate how much the garden would be worth, if each
of the innumerable rose-petals were a thin plate of gold.
And though he once was fond of music (in spite of an
idle story about his ears, which were said to resemble
those of an ass), the only music for poor Midas, now,
was the chink of one coin against another.

At length (as people always grow more and more fool-
ish, unless they take care to grow wiser and wiser),
Midas had got to be so exceedingly unreasonable, that he
could scarcely bear to see or touch any object that was
not gold. He made it his custom, therefore, to pass
a large portion of every day ina dark and dreary apart-
ment, under ground, at the basement of his palace. It
was here that he kept his wealth. To this dismal hole
—for it was little better than a dungeon — Midas be-