No Good Deed 51

I confess it; that evening I became quite drunk. It would not have ended in Cattermole's bed else. However, it seemed that the former ship's agent's office had been transformed into a stateroom of almost adequate proportions and comfort. Therefore, it was with some regret that I departed it the next day to the accompaniment of Cattermole's snores.

The Enterprise lumbered down river, ugly as a manatee, docking at Natchez and sundry small towns by the side of the great river. I felt no inclination to stretch my legs in any of these provincial places. Even from the ship's deck one could see that they were utterly, interchangeably dull. Nevertheless, by the time the riverboat drew up in Baton Rouge, I knew that I must debark the vessel or commit murder. Scarcely had I left the gangplank, when a familiar voice hailed me from behind me on the riverboat,

'Hold up there, Northrup, let's take a walk round this burg!'

Inevitably, to my great chagrin, it was Clemens, notebook and pencil in hand.

The was something of the pup about him, forever seeking attention, approval, applause. This accounted for the incessant flow of anecdotes and aphorisms that poured from his ever flapping mouth. I was resigned to his company for the dozen or so hours we were at liberty in the Louisiana capital.

'Been here before, Northrup?' he said as he matched me stride for stride, scarce out of breath, since he had the advantage of me by some twenty years. I replied in the negative.

'Wait'll yuh see the Capitol building!' he said, letting out the snigger of a schoolboy on breaking wind.

I stopped short and he continued for a few more steps, before looking back, saying,

'Come on, Northrup, nothin' more borin' than a man's own company, it's a fact.'

I followed him despite the feeling that I was accompanying the living disproof of his own statement.

Clemens led me to some parkland, magnolia trees abounded on and around the rolling hillocks, the centrepiece of this arcadian setting was most unexpected. It was a white-washed approximation of a castle. Indeed, it looked as though it might have built according to sketches by the Bedlam Brushmaster, Richard Dadd. It was a fussy and impractical agglomeration of crenellations and turrets that no more belonged in Louisiana than I.

'Ain't it the dangedest thing,' Clemens barked,' you can see it from the river too, doncha know!'

He shook his head at the incongruity of it. I thought of informing him that it was by no means the most outlandish building I had ever seen, but realised that Gibbous House would enter his notebook, to be regurgitated as some humorous pastiche of an English historical novel, doubtless with some Yankee fool at the heart of it.