chartering of a vessel had been committed.

"See here, Charon," Sir Walter Raleigh had said, after Charon had
expressed himself as deeply sympathetic, but unable to shave the terms
upon which the vessel could be had, "you are an infernal old hypocrite.
You go about wringing your hands over our misfortunes until they've got as
dry and flabby as a pair of kid gloves, and yet when we ask you for a ship
of suitable size and speed to go out after those pirates, you become a
sort of twin brother to Shylock, without his excuse. His instincts are
accidents of birth. Yours are cultivated, and you know it."

"You are very much mistaken, Sir Walter," Charon had answered to this.
"You don't understand my position. It is a very hard one. As janitor of
your club I am really prostrated over the events of the past twenty-four
hours. My occupation is gone, and my despair over your loss is
correspondingly greater, for I have time on my hands to brood over it. I
was hysterical as a woman yesterday afternoon--so hysterical that I came
near upsetting one of the Furies who engaged me to row her down to Madame
Medusa's villa last evening; and right at the sluice of the vitriol
reservoir at that."

[Illustration: "'YOU ARE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN, SIR WALTER'"]

"Then why the deuce don't you do something to help us?" pleaded Hamlet.

"How can I do any more than I have done? I've offered you the _Gehenna_,"
retorted Charon.

"But on what terms?" expostulated Raleigh. "If we had all the wealth of
the Indies we'd have difficulty in paying you the sums you demand."