they entered the school,
was to make their patchwork clothes, as I have said. Julia had got his
finished and was busily sewing on a red and green patchwork quilt,
in a tea-chest pattern, when, one day, the Mayor came to visit the
school. Just then his son did not happen to be serving a term there;
the Mayor never visited it with visitors of distinction when he was.

To-day he had a Chinese Ambassador with him. The Patchwork Woman sat
behind her desk on the platform and sewed patchwork, the Mayor in his
fine broadcloth sat one side of her, and the Chinese Ambassador, in
his yellow satin gown, on the other.

The Ambassador's name was To-Chum. The children could not help
stealing glances occasionally at his high eyebrows and braided queue,
but they cast their eyes on their sewing again directly.

The Mayor and the Ambassador staid about an hour; then after they had
both made some remarks--the Ambassador made his in Chinese; he could
speak English, but his remarks in Chinese were wiser--they rose to go.

Now, the door of the Patchwork School was of a very peculiar
structure. It was made of iron of a great thickness, and opened like
any safe door, only it had more magic about it than any safe door ever
had. At a certain hour in the afternoon, it shut of its own accord,
and opened at a certain hour in the morning, when the Patchwork Woman
repeated a formula before it. The formula did no good whatever at any
other time; the door was so constructed that not even its inventor
could open it after it shut at the certain hour of the afternoon,
before the certain hour the next morning.

Now the Mayor and the Chinese Ambassador had staid rather longer than
they should have. They had been so interested in the school that they
had not noticed how the time was going, and the Patchwork Woman had
been so taken up with a very intricate new pattern that she failed to
remind them, as was her custom.

So it happened that while the Mayor got through the iron door safely,
just as the Chinese Ambassador was following it suddenly swung to, and
shut in his braided queue at a very high point.

[Illustration: JULIA ENTERTAINS THE AMBASSADOR THROUGH THE KEYHOLE.]

Then there was the Ambassador on one side of the door, and his queue
on the other, and the door could not possibly be opened before
morning. Here was a terrible dilemma! What was to be done? There stood
the children, their patchwork in their hands, staring, open-mouthed,
at the que