“Be it as you wish, then,” said the stranger:  “from to-morrow at sunrise you will have your desire—­everything you touch will be changed into gold.”

The figure of the stranger then grew brighter and brighter, so that Midas had to close his eyes, and when he opened them again he saw only a yellow sunbeam in the room, and all around him glittered the precious gold which he had spent his life in gathering.

How Midas longed for the next day to come!  He scarcely slept that night, and as soon as it was light he laid his hand on the chair beside his bed; then he nearly cried when he saw that nothing happened:  the chair remained just as it was.  “Could the stranger have made a mistake,” he wondered, “or had it been a dream?”

He lay still, getting angrier and angrier each minute until at last the sun rose, and the first rays shone through his window and brightened the room.  It seemed to Midas that the bright yellow sunbeam was reflected very curiously from the covering of his bed, and he sat up and looked more closely.

What was his delight when he saw that the bedcover on which his hands rested had become a woven cloth of the purest and brightest gold!  He started up and caught hold of the bed-post—­instantly it became a golden pillar.  He pulled aside the window-curtain and the tassel grew heavy in his hand—­it was a mass of gold!  He took up a book from the table, and at his first touch it became a bundle of thin golden leaves, in which no reading could be seen.

Midas was delighted with his good fortune.  He took his spectacles from his pocket and put them on, so that he might see more distinctly what he was about.  But to his surprise he could not possibly see through them:  the clear glasses had turned into gold, and, of course, though they were worth a great deal of money, they were of no more use as spectacles.

Midas thought this was rather troublesome, but he soon forgot all about it.  He went downstairs, and how he laughed with pleasure when he noticed that the railing became a bar of shining gold as he rested his hand on it; even the rusty iron latch of the garden door turned yellow as soon as his fingers pressed it.

How lovely the garden was!  In the old days Midas had been very fond of flowers, and had spent a great deal of money in getting rare trees and flowers with which to make his garden beautiful.

Red roses in full bloom scented the air:  purple and white violets nestled under the rose-bushes, and birds were singing happily in the cherry-trees, which were covered with snow-white blossoms.  But since Midas had become so fond of gold he had lost all pleasure in his garden:  this morning he did not even see how beautiful it was.

He was thinking of nothing but the wonderful gift the stranger had brought him, and he was sure he could make the garden of far more value than it had ever been.  So he went from bush to bush and touched the flowers.  And the beautiful pink and red color faded from the roses:  the violets became stiff, and then glittered among bunches of hard yellow leaves:  and showers of snow-white blossoms no longer fell from the cherry-trees; the tiny petals were all changed into flakes of solid gold, which glittered so brightly in the sunbeams that Midas could not bear to look at them.