Then Apollo rose, crowned with laurel and wearing a robe of Tyrian purple that swept the ground. He struck the strings of his lyre and earth was filled with the music of the gods. The mountain-god swept away the trees that surrounded him so that he could listen better, and the trees themselves leaned toward Apollo in wonder and homage. When the music stopped, the strings still vibrated making the hills carry and echo the harmony to the skies. The mountain-god awarded the victory in the unequal contest to Apollo, but King Midas objected. "I like better the music of Pan's pipes," he said. "I question the judgment of Tmolus." Poor old Midas, still self centered and earthly! Apollo could not suffer such a depraved pair of ears to wear human form any longer. He touched Midas' ears and they began to lengthen, to move where they joined his head, and they grew heavy inside and outside. Midas had the ears of an ass! Such a mortification for a king to have to bear! Indeed King Midas could not stand it alone, and he told the secret of his odd ears to the court hair-dresser in order to get his help in disguising them. "But on pain of death do not tell anyone about my ears!" Midas commanded. The hairdresser cut the King's hair so as to cover up the flopping ass's ears and he even fashioned a large turban to further conceal them, but he couldn't keep such a good secret. He went out into a meadow, dug a hole in the ground, and stooping down, whispered the secret into it. Then he carefully covered it up. In a very short time a thick bed of reeds sprang up in the meadow in the exact spot where the hairdresser had buried the secret of King Midas' disgrace. As soon as the reeds had grown high enough to be played upon by the breezes they began to whisper the story of the king who had to finish his reign with a pair of asses' ears instead of his own, because of his self will. And it is said that the meadow reeds, blown by the wind, tell the story of King Midas to-day. HOW MERCURY GAVE UP HIS TRICKS. Apollo was in great trouble, for he had lost one of the herds of cattle he owned upon the earth. He knew the exact spot where he had left them the night before in a pasture of Arcadia, but when he rode out the next morning in his chariot of light with the first dawning of the day, the herd had disappeared. He searched the country for leagues about, but was unable to find a single trace of the cows. There was not even one hoof print to tell where they had gone. As Apollo searched, he met a farmer of that country named Battus, whose eyes were fairly popping out of his head with wonder. "Have you seen a straying herd of cattle in these parts, rustic?" Apollo asked him. "I have lost my best herd, and can find trace of neither hoof or hide of one of them."