"What's the blooming thing for?" said Charon, more dismayed than ever.
"If they start another line with a craft like this, I'm very much afraid
I'm done for after all. I wouldn't take a boat like mine myself if there
was a floating palace like this going the same way. I'll have to see the
Commissioners about this, and find out what it all means. I suppose
it'll cost me a pretty penny, too, confound them!"

A prey to these unhappy reflections, Charon investigated further, and the
more he saw the less he liked it. He was about to encounter opposition,
and an opposition which was apparently backed by persons of great
wealth--perhaps the Commissioners themselves. It was a consoling thought
that he had saved enough money in the course of his career to enable him
to live in comfort all his days, but this was not really what Charon was
after. He wished to acquire enough to retire and become one of the smart
set. It had been done in that section of the universe which lay on the
bright side of the Styx, why not, therefore, on the other, he asked.

"I'm pretty well connected even if I am a boatman," he had been known to
say. "With Chaos for a grandfather, and Erebus and Nox for parents, I've
just as good blood in my veins as anybody in Hades. The Noxes are a
mighty fine family, not as bright as the Days, but older; and we're
poor--that's it, poor--and it's money makes caste these days. If I had
millions, and owned a railroad, they'd call me a yacht-owner. As I
haven't, I'm only a boatman. Bah! Wait and see! I'll be giving swell
functions myself some day, and these upstarts will be on their knees
before me begging to be asked. Then I'll get up a little aristocracy of
my own, and I won't let a soul into it whose name isn't mentioned in the
Grecian mythologies. Mention in Burke's peerage and the Elite
directories of America won't admit anybody to Commodore Charon's house