“I should hope not!” he returned.  Then he continued:  “Do you remember where we are to be taken to-morrow?”

“Yes,” I said.  “To the Pringle house.”

“Well,” said he, “I just came in to ask you, as a favor, not to get off any fanciful ideas that you may have thought up, about the way to spell Pringle.”

CHAPTER XXX

POLITICS, A NEWSPAPER AND ST. CECILIA

Charleston is very definitely a part of South Carolina.  That is not always the case with a State and its chief city.  It is not the case with the State and the City of New York.  New York City has about the same relation to New York State as a goldpiece has to a large table-top on one corner of which it lies.  Charleston, on the other hand, harmonizes into its state setting, as a beautiful ancient vase harmonizes into the setting afforded by some rare old cabinet.  Moreover, Charleston’s individuality amongst cities is more or less duplicated in South Carolina’s individuality amongst States.  South Carolina is a State as definitely marked—­though in altogether different ways—­as Kansas or California.  It is a State that does nothing by halves.  It has rattlesnakes larger and more venomous than other rattlesnakes, and it has twice had the disgraceful Cole Blease, otherwise “To-hell-with-the-Constitution” Blease, as governor.  For senator it has the old war-horse Tillman, a man so admired for his power that, in our easy-going way, we almost forgive his dives into the pork-barrel.  Tillman has been to South Carolina more or less what the late Senator Hale was to his section of New England.  Hale grabbed a navy yard for Kittery, Maine (the Portsmouth yard), where there never should have been a navy yard; Tillman performed a like service, under like circumstances, for Charleston.  Both are purely political yards.  Naval officers opposed them, but were overridden by politicians, as so often happens.  For in time of peace the army and the navy are political footballs, and it is only when war comes that the politicians cease kicking them about and cry:  “Now, football, turn into a cannon-ball, and save your country and your country’s flag!” For obviously, if the flag cannot be saved, the politicians will be without a “starry banner” to gesture at and roar about.

Now, of course, with war upon us, any navy yard is a blessing, and the Charleston yard is being used, as it should be, to the utmost.  But in time of peace the yard comes in for much criticism from the navy, the contention being that it is not favorably located from a strategic point of view, and that, owing to bars in the Cooper River, up which it is situated, it cannot be entered by large ships.  The point is also made that while labor is cheaper at this yard than at any other, skilled metal-workers are hard to get.  Friends of the yard contend, upon the other hand, that it is desirable because of its convenience to the Caribbean Sea, where, according