Three as well as a Presbyterian boy does the Shorter Catechism.
A cadet--an undergraduate of the South Carolina Military Institute
--called our roll at Florence, and though an inborn young aristocrat, who
believed himself made of finer clay than most mortals, he was not a bad
fellow at all. He thought South Carolina aristocracy the finest gentry,
and the South Carolina Military Institute the greatest institution of
learning in the world; but that is common with all South Carolinians.

One day he came in so full of some matter of rare importance that we
became somewhat excited as to its nature. Dismissing our hundred after
roll-call, he unburdened his mind:

"Now you fellers are all so d---d peart on mathematics, and such things,
that you want to snap me up on every opportunity, but I guess I've got
something this time that'll settle you. Its something that a fellow gave
out yesterday, and Colonel Iverson, and all the officers out there have
been figuring on it ever since, and none have got the right answer, and
I'm powerful sure that none of you, smart as you think you are, can do
it."

"Heavens, and earth, let's hear this wonderful problem," said we all.

"Well," said he, "what is the length of a pole standing in a river,
one-fifth of which is in the mud, two-thirds in the water, and one-eighth
above the water, while one foot and three inches of the top is broken
off?"

In a minute a dozen answered, "One hundred and fifty feet."

The cadet could only look his amazement at the possession of such an