* * * * *

For fully five years I had had no lapse of memory and my health was sound.  At the school I took delight in athletic sports, and gained a reputation among the Charleston boys for being an expert especially in climbing.  My studies, while not neglected, were, nevertheless, considered by me as secondary matters; I suppose that the anxiety shown by my father for my health influenced me somewhat; moreover, I had a natural bent toward bodily rather than mental exercise.

The feature most attractive to me in school work was the debating class.  As a sort of ex-officio president of this club, was one of our tutors, whom none of the boys seemed greatly to like.  He was called Professor Khayme—­pronounced Ki-me.  Sometimes the principal addressed him as Doctor.  He certainly was a very learned and intelligent man; for although the boys had him in dislike, there were yet many evidences of the respect he commanded from better judges than schoolboys.  He seemed, at various times, of different ages.  He might be anywhere between thirty and fifty.  He was small of stature, being not more than five feet tall, and was exceedingly quick and energetic in his movements, while his countenance and attitude, no matter what was going on, expressed always complete self-control, if not indifference.  He was dark—­almost as dark as an Indian.  His face was narrow, but the breadth and height of his forehead were almost a deformity.  He had no beard, and yet I feel sure that he never used a razor.  I rarely saw him off duty without a peculiar black pipe in his mouth, which he smoked in an unusual way, emitting the smoke at very long intervals.  It was a standing jest with my irreverent schoolmates that “Old Ky” owed his fine, rich colour to smoking through his skin.  Ingram Hall said that the carved Hindoo idol which decorated the professor’s pipe was the very image of “Old Ky” himself.

Our debating class sometimes prepared oratorical displays to which were admitted a favoured few of the general public.  To my dying day I shall remember one of these occasions.  The debate, so celebrated, between the great Carolinian Hayne and our own Webster was the feature of the entertainment.  Behind the curtain sat Professor Khayme, prompter and general manager.  A boy with mighty lungs and violent gesticulation recited an abridgment of Hayne’s speech, beginning:—­

“If there be one State in the Union, Mr. President, and I say it not in a boastful spirit, that may challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the Union, that State is South Carolina.”

Great applause followed.  These were times of sectional compromise.  I also applauded.  We were under the falsely quieting influence of Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Bill.  There was effort for harmony between the sections.  The majority of thinking people considered true patriotism to concist in patience and charity each to each.  Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had appeared, but few Southerners had read it or would read it.  I also applauded.