“Everyone nowadays asks that fool question,” Charon retorted, angrily. “I believe John Bangs, like George Eliot, is a woman, for he can’t keep a secret, while Harper & Brothers offer him royalties for it. Shortly after the ‘Pursuit of the House-boat’ that craft disappeared from the river and Sherlock Holmes with it. He went back to haunt Conan Doyle, I guess. I hope he won’t come back again in a hurry, for he made no end of trouble with his inferences and his deductions.” “What—” “No more questions, if you please. I am not on the witness stand, nor will I consent to be interviewed. Besides, talking is an infraction of the rules of the Asbestos Society.” “Do they seek to muzzle the press?” I asked indignantly. “So few newspaper men come this way that that isn’t necessary,” returned Charon. “We have a free press. It is said that ‘the devil frequently becomes a publisher by way of diversion.’ This is the Styx, not the Delaware, and we are going to Hades, not to Philadelphia, thank goodness! The order was framed to muzzle some one more formidable than reporters or devils—woman!” “The Asbestos Society is quite a suggestive name.” “Its formation was quite recent. A learned scientist up on the earth, by tapping on the ground to invoke Pluto, discovered extensive deposits of asbestos in Hades. As soon as the news reached the Styx, nothing would satisfy ‘Boss’ Tweed but the formation of a society for the purpose of robbing cremation of its traditional terrors. As to wish is to have, every denizen of the domain of the departed is now wearing an asbestos suit. Dives must have his diversion, even if the devil is cheated out of his own.” We had crossed over the Styx. Charon quickly made fast to a wharf and prepared to disembark. As I landed I noticed on the dock a legend which read: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” At last I was in Hades! SHADY SINNERS OF THE STYX. CHAPTER II. Shady Sinners of the Styx. I was in the region of Outer Darkness to which the dead are banished to await the judgment. All about me was a misty blackness so oppressive that one felt as if wedged between mountains. My feet sank in the soft earth, composed of those good intentions with which I had helped to pave the road to Hell. Voices of other days seemed to sound in my ears; out of the shadowy mist forms of ghostly men and women emerged and then were lost to sight, swallowed up in the darkness. Perceiving a glimmering light in the distance I hastened toward it. A phantom house barred my path, but I flitted through it as though it were not. A pale twilight now made objects discernible and I breathed more freely, for I no longer stumbled over the good resolutions, which, being broken, blocked the pavement.