The boat didn’t cover much ground, or water, just paddling up the river a spell then back down, but the ride was as pleasant and smooth as a southern drawl.

Steve, the riverboat captain, was a jovial host and as we pulled away from the dock, he sang out over the boat’s PA system an obligatory “Maaaark Twaaaaaaain,” reassuring us that the water was two fathoms deep, which to the riverboat pilot meant safe water. Safe water. It is still a comforting reassurance to us today.

I climbed up to the boat’s wheelhouse and asked Captain Steve something I’d always wondered: why were the top of the boat’s smokestacks fluted?

“Mostly tradition,” he replied. “But back in Twain’s day the flutes helped keep the embers from the boat’s furnace from falling on the passengers’ heads.”

Satisfied with the answer I went back to the ship’s bow and drank a Coke.

On our return to shore, the captain blew the boat’s powerful steam whistle thrice before sidling up to the dock. I thanked Captain Steve and disembarked, then walked to Main Street, ate lunch at Ole Planters Restaurant, then wandered back to my hotel, perusing store windows on the way.

Two blocks from my hotel I passed an office with a sign in the window that read:

Haunted Hannibal Ghost Tours

I went inside to check it out. No one was inside, but there was a sign-up list for the evening’s tour. I added my name to the list.

Just about everything in Hannibal is haunted, and everyone in town had a ghost story they were eager to share. The first ghost story I heard was shared that morning by my waitress over breakfast. The renter in an apartment next to the Java Jive kept complaining about the creepy organ music that woke him every night at 3 A.M. He refused to believe that the coffeehouse management was not to blame even though the coffeehouse didn’t own an organ and closed at midnight.

Even the public library had stories of a fastidious apparition who, after closing hours, threw books on the floor that had been incorrectly reshelved.

After a nap at the hotel, I woke feeling a little dizzy again, but it soon passed. I ate dinner at the same diner I had the night before, then walked two blocks to the shop where I’d signed up for the ghost tour.

A long, gray passenger van was idling in front of the office and a small congregation on the sidewalk. I walked inside the office. A tall, pleasant-looking woman with long, dishwater blond hair stood next to the counter holding a clipboard.

“I’m here for the ghost tour,” I said.

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” she said, wagging a pen in front of me. “You must be Mr. Christoffersen.”

“That’s me,” I said.