Midas called himself a happy man, but felt that he was not yet quite so happy as he might be.  The very tip-top of enjoyment would never be reached unless the whole world were to become his treasure-room and be filled with yellow metal which should be all his own.

Now, I need hardly remind such wise little people as you are that in the old, old times, when King Midas was alive, a great many things came to pass which we should consider wonderful if they were to happen in our own day and country.  And, on the other hand, a great many things take place nowadays which seem not only wonderful to us, but at which the people of old times would have stared their eyes out.  On the whole, I regard our own times as the stranger of the two; but, however that may be, I must go on with my story.

[Illustration:  The figure of A stranger in the sunbeam]

Midas was enjoying himself in his treasure-room one day as usual, when he perceived a shadow fall over the heaps of gold, and, looking suddenly up, what should he behold but the figure of a stranger standing in the bright and narrow sunbeam!  It was a young man with a cheerful and ruddy face.  Whether it was the imagination of King Midas threw a yellow tinge over everything, or whatever the cause might be, he could not help fancying that the smile with which the stranger regarded him had a kind of golden radiance in it.  Certainly, although his figure intercepted the sunshine, there was now a brighter gleam upon all the piled-up treasures than before.  Even the remotest corners had their share of it, and were lighted up, when the stranger smiled, as with tips of flame and sparkles of fire.

As Midas knew that he had carefully turned the key in the lock, and that no mortal strength could possibly break into his treasure-room, he of course concluded that his visitor must be something more than mortal.  It is no matter about telling you who he was.  In those days, when the earth was comparatively a new affair, it was supposed to be often the resort of beings endowed with supernatural powers, who used to interest themselves in the joys and sorrows of men, women, and children half playfully and half seriously.  Midas had met such beings before now, and was not sorry to meet one of them again.  The stranger’s aspect, indeed, was so good-humored and kindly, if not beneficent, that it would have been unreasonable to suspect him of intending any mischief.  It was far more probable that he came to do Midas a favor.  What could that favor be unless to multiply his heaps of treasure?

The stranger gazed about the room, and when his lustrous smile had glistened upon all the golden objects that 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.”