Turkish bath plan with departments of varying temperature. Those are the kind of people who swallow the thermometer of Dr. Doubt and die by degrees. If you find it as pleasant as John Kendrick Bangs did, you will want to stay and join the Stygian smart set, so I’ll transfer your insurance from the Equality to the Rock of Gibraltar and see to it that your sister does not starve or freeze, whatever may be the climatic fate of her brother.

“Don’t take the subway route to the under world, for then your chances of coming back would be grounded. You are to take the Twenty-third Street Ferry for the Jersey shore. New York and Hell are said to be convertible terms, but I’ve never before heard New Jersey given that distinction. However, Bangs says that’s the route, and as he plays golf with good intentions over there every summer, he ought to know.

“Don’t take any baggage, except perhaps your sister’s sunshade, as only shades and shady characters are permitted to cross the River Styx. You[Pg 7] more nearly come under the second category than any other member of the staff, so I have chosen you. As you may need ‘money to burn,’ call on the cashier for a ‘sinking fund’ before you start on your journey.

[Pg 7]

“By-the-by, while you are in Hades you might ask John Paul Jones whether he would prefer burial in New York, Washington, Annapolis, Philadelphia or Ocean Grove. That would be a ‘scoop’ worth more than the marital intemperance of the Mormon king. Get his signature so that if ‘our friends, the enemy,’ cry fake we can show them ‘what’s in a name.’ As Mr. Bangs, by the exercise of his imagination, was enabled to penetrate the Stygian regions, a newspaper man should have no difficulty in doing likewise by the exercise of his nerve; but if Charon bars the gate owing to your being still in the flesh, this will admit you. It’s a skeleton key.”

Half an hour later I stood on the deck of a ferryboat which was plowing the waters of the North River. Obedience to the commands of the “czar” of the city room soon becomes second nature to a newspaper man, and I had often boasted that I would go anywhere on earth or under the earth if sent there by Mr. Burroughs. I squared my shoulders to the breeze from the bay and resolved that I would not fail now that I had been put to the test, even if—A shudder finished the sentence; my mind stood palsied as I faced the Unknown.

[Pg 8]

[Pg 8]

It was a night of Stygian 

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