





Transcribed from the 1902 Harper and Brothers edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk





A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE STYX
by John Kendrick Bangs


CHAPTER I: CHARON MAKES A DISCOVERY


Charon, the Ferryman of renown, was cruising slowly along the Styx one
pleasant Friday morning not long ago, and as he paddled idly on he
chuckled mildly to himself as he thought of the monopoly in ferriage
which in the course of years he had managed to build up.

"It's a great thing," he said, with a smirk of satisfaction--"it's a
great thing to be the go-between between two states of being; to have the
exclusive franchise to export and import shades from one state to the
other, and withal to have had as 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 met his
gaze, and one, too, that filled him