metropolis of Illinois.

The Associated Shades had had some trouble in getting this craft.
Charon, through his constant association with life on both sides of
the dark river, had gained a knowledge, more or less intimate, of
modern business methods, and while as janitor of the club he was
subject to the will of the House-boat Committee, and sympathized
deeply with the members of the association in their trouble, as
president of the Styx Navigation Company he was bound up in certain
newly attained commercial ideas which were embarrassing to those
members of the association to whose hands the 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