bedchamber. At the moment, as it happened, I was putting cuff-links into
a dress shirt. With this task I busied myself, dreading to look up. In
the meantime I felt his eyes fixed upon me. When the links were in, I
delayed meeting his gaze by buttoning the little button in one
sleeve-vent, above the cuff.

"Do you mean to say you button those idiotic little buttons?" he
demanded. "I didn't know that anybody ever did that!"

"I don't always," I answered apologetically.

"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