pair?" "I have three pair, but they all have holes, some of them as big as this," and he made a circle with his thumb and finger. "Have them mended," I replied, and passed on down the line. I found that all the nine boys had extra pairs and all of them, as is the case with the stockings of every decent fellow I ever knew, had holes. I maintain that in China, as at home, it is a sign that a boy is a real boy when he wears holes in his stockings. So I advised them to have one pair mended and washed before Christmas Eve, and bring it to me. And then—well, we should see what we should see.
Great was the excitement among the boys, and not a sock was missing when the great night arrived. I did not let the boys hang up their own socks, but packed them all off to the school study-room upstairs, while one of the teachers and I pinned the socks up in a row in the class-room under the blackboard. You know we have no fires in the schools here, and so there are no chimneys. All the same Santa Claus found a way, for next morning—but wait a bit.
When I got down to the school on Christmas morning at half-past seven I found the boys already at breakfast. They were casting anxious eyes in the direction of the room with the closed door, and like other boys I have known they did not take long to eat their Christmas-morning breakfast. When they were all ready they filed into the room. I am not going to tell you how those stockings were filled. You may decide for yourselves how, and by whom it was done. I don't think the boys stopped to think anything
