Page:The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories - Forster (1912).djvu/98

Rh feeling particularly keen on Universal Nature so you turn into a reed."

"Is Jack mad?" asked Mrs. Worters.

But Miss Beaumont had caught the allusions—which were quite ingenious I must admit. "And Crœsus?" she inquired. "What was it one turned into to get away from Crœsus?"

I hastened to tidy up her mythology. "Midas, Miss Beaumont, not Crœsus. And he turns you—you don't turn yourself: he turns you into gold."

"There's no dodging Midas," said Ford.

"Surely—" said Miss Beaumont. She had been learning Latin not quite a fortnight, but she would have corrected the Regius Professor.

He began to tease her. "Oh, there's no dodging Midas! He just comes, he touches you, and you pay him several thousand per cent, at once. You're gold—a young golden lady—if he touches you."

"I won't be touched!" she cried, relapsing into her habitual frivolity.

"Oh, but he'll touch you."

"He sha'n't!"

"He will."

"He sha'n't!"

"He will."