"Didn't you hear a shuffling noise up on deck, Portia?" asked the Egyptian
Queen.

"I thought I did, and it seemed as if the vessel had moved a bit,"
returned Portia, nervously; for, like most women in an advanced state of
development, she had become a martyr to her nerves.

"It was merely the wash from one of Charon's new ferry-boats, I fancy,"
said Elizabeth, calmly. "It's disgusting, the way that old fellow allows
these modern innovations to be brought in here! As if the old paddle-boats
he used to carry shades in weren't good enough for the immigrants of this
age! Really this Styx River is losing a great deal of its charm. Sir
Walter and I were upset, while out rowing one day last summer, by the
waves kicked up by one of Charon's excursion steamers going up the river
with a party of picnickers from the city--the Greater Gehenna Chowder
Club, I believe it was--on board of her. One might just as well live in
the midst of the turmoil of a great city as try to get uninterrupted quiet
here in the suburbs in these days. Charon isn't content to get rich
slowly; he must make money by the barrelful, if he has to sacrifice all
the comfort of everybody living on this river. Anybody'd think he was an
American, the way he goes on; and everybody else here is the same way. The
Erebeans are getting to be a race of shopkeepers."

"I think myself," sighed Cleopatra, "that Hades is being spoiled by the
introduction of American ideas--it is getting by far too democratic for my
tastes; and if it isn't stopped, it's my belief that the best people will
stop coming here. Take Madame Récamier's salon as it is now and compare it
with what it used to be! In the early days, after her arrival here,
everybody went because it was the swell thing, and you'd be sure of