Transcribed from the 1902 Harper and Brothers edition ,email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
Charon, the Ferryman of renown, was cruising slowly along the Styxone pleasant Friday morning not long ago, and as he paddled idly onhe chuckled mildly to himself as he thought of the monopoly in ferriagewhich in the course of years he had managed to build up.
“It’s a great thing,” he said, with a smirk ofsatisfaction—“it’s a great thing to be the go-betweenbetween two states of being; to have the exclusive franchise to exportand import shades from one state to the other, and withal to have hadas clean a record as mine has been. Valuable as is my franchise,I never corrupted a public official in my life, and—”
Here Charon stopped his soliloquy and his boat simultaneously. As he rounded one of the many turns in the river a singular object methis gaze, and one, too, that filled him with misgiving. It wasanother craft, and that was a thing not to be tolerated. Had he,Charon, owned the exclusive right of way on the Styx all these yearsto have it disputed here in the closing decade of the Nineteenth Century? Had not he dealt satisfactorily with all, whether it was in the lineof ferriage or in the providing of boats for pleasure-trips up the river? Had he not received expressions of satisfaction, indeed, from the mostexclusive families of Hades with the very select series of picnics hehad given at Charon’s Glen Island? No wonder, then, thatthe queer-looking boat that met his gaze, moored in a shady nook onthe dark side of the river, filled him with dismay.
“Blow me for a landlubber if I like that!” he said, ina hardly audible whisper. “And shiver my timbers if I don’tfind out what she’s there for. If anybody thinks he canrun an opposition line to mine on this river he’s mightily mistaken. If it comes to competition, I can carry shades for nothing and stillquaff the B. & G. yellow-label benzine three times a day withoutexperiencing a financial panic. I’ll show ’em a thingor two if they attempt to rival me. And what a boat! Itlooks for all the world like a Florentine barn on a canal-boat.”
Charon paddled up to the side of the craft, and, standing up in themiddle of his boat, cried out,
“Ship ahoy!”
There was no answer, and the Ferryman hailed her again. Receivingno response to his second call, he resolved to investigate for himself;so, fastening his own boat to the stern-post of the stranger, he clamberedon board. If he was astonished as he sat in his ferry-boat, hewas paralyzed when he cast his eye over the unwelcome vessel he hadboarded. He stood for at least two minutes rooted to the spot. His eye swept over a long, broad deck, the polish of which resembledthat of a ball-room floor. Amidships, running from three-quartersaft to three-quarters forward, stood a structure that in its lines resembled,as Charon had intimated, a barn, designed by an architect enamouredof Florentine simplicity; but in its construction the richest of woodshad been used, and in its interior arrangement and adornment nothingmore palatial could be conceived.
“What’s the blooming thing for?” said Charon, moredismayed than ever. “If they start another line with a craftlike 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 floatingpalace like this going the same way. I’ll have to see theCommissioners about this, and find out what it all means. I supposeit’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 encounteropposition, and an opposition which was apparently b