“Nothing, child, nothing,” said Midas.  “Eat your milk before it gets quite cold.”

He took one of the nice little trouts on his plate, and, by way of experiment, touched its tail with his finger.  To his horror, it was immediately transmuted from an admirably fried brook trout into a gold fish, though not one of those gold fishes which people often keep in glass globes as ornaments for the parlor.  No; but it was really a metallic fish, and looked as if it had been very cunningly made by the nicest goldsmith in the world.  Its little bones were now golden wires, its fins and tail were thin plates of gold, and there were the marks of the fork in it, and all the delicate, frothy appearance of a nicely fried fish exactly imitated in metal.  A very pretty piece of work, as you may suppose; only King Midas, just at that moment, would much rather have had a real trout in his dish than this elaborate and valuable imitation of one.

“I 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 moment 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 solidity 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, indeed, might have been mistaken for one of those which the famous goose in the storybook 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 Marygold, 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 dispatch, 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 burned his tongue that he roared aloud, and, jumping up from the table, began to dance and stamp about the room both with pain and affright.

“Father, dear father!” cried little Marygold, who was a very affectionate child, “pray what is the matter?  Have you burned your mouth?”

“Ah, dear child,” groaned Midas dolefully, “I don’t know what is to become of your poor father.”