10 | THE GOLDEN TOUCH.

trout in his dish than this elaborate and valuable imita-
tion of one.

“T don’t quite see,” thought he to himself, “how I
am to get any breakfast!”

He took one of the smoking-hot cakes, and had scarcely
broken it, when, to his cruel mortification, though, a mo-
ment before, it had been of the whitest wheat, it assumed
the yellow hue of Indian meal. To say the truth, if it
had really been a hot Indian cake, Midas would have
prized it a good deal more than he now did, when its so-
lidity and increased weight made him too bitterly sensible
that it was gold. Almost in despair, he helped himself
to a boiled egg, which immediately underwent a change
similar to those of the trout and the cake. The egg, in-
deed, might have been mistaken for one of those which
the famous goose, in the story-book, was in the habit of
laying; but King Midas was the only goose that had had
anything to do with the matter.

“Well, this is a quandary!” thought he, leaning back
in his chair, and looking quite enviously at little Mary-
gold, who was now eating her bread and milk with great
satisfaction. ‘Such a costly breakfast before me, and
nothing that can be eaten!”

Hoping that, by dint of great despatch, he might avoid
what he now felt to be a considerable inconvenience,
King Midas next snatched a hot potato, and attempted to
cram it into his mouth, and swallow it in a hurry. But
the Golden Touch was too nimble for him. He found his
‘mouth full, not of mealy potato, but of solid metal, which
so burnt his tongue that he roared aloud, and, jumping