I seen the like.
But what do you with this nose, Yi Chin Ho!"

"I seek it whereby to repay the money to the government," said Yi Chin
Ho. "I seek it to be of service to your excellency, and I seek it to
save my own worthless head. Further, I seek your excellency's seal upon
this picture of the nose."

And the Governor laughed and affixed the seal of state, and Yi Chin Ho
departed. For a month and a day he traveled the King's Road which leads
to the shore of the Eastern Sea; and there, one night, at the gate of
the largest mansion of a wealthy city he knocked loudly for admittance.

"None other than the master of the house will I see," said he fiercely
to the frightened servants. "I travel upon the King's business."

Straightway was he led to an inner room, where the master of the house
was roused from his sleep and brought blinking before him.

"You are Pak Chung Chang, head man of this city," said Yi Chin Ho in
tones that were all-accusing. "I am upon the King's business."

Pak Chung Chang trembled. Well he knew the King's business was ever a
terrible business. His knees smote together, and he near fell to the
floor.

"The hour is late," he quavered. "Were it not well to----"

"The King's business never waits!" thundered Yi Chin Ho. "Come apart
with me, and swiftly. I have an affair of moment to discuss with you.

"It is the King's affair," he added with even greater fierceness; so
that Pak Chung Chang's silver pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers
and clattered on the floor.

"Know then," said Yi Chin Ho, when they had gone apart, "that the King
is troubled with an affliction, a very terrible affliction. In that he
failed to cure, the Court physician has had nothing else than his head
chopped off. From all the Eight Provinces have the physicians come to
wait upon the King. Wise consultation have they held, and they have
decided that for a remedy for the King's affliction nothing else is
required than a nose, a certain kind of nose, a very peculiar certain
kind of nose.

"Then by none other was I summoned than his excellency the prime
minister himself. He put a paper into my hand. Upon this paper was the
very peculiar kind of nose drawn by the physicians of the Eight
Provinces, with the seal of state upon it.

"'Go,' said his excellency the prime minister. 'Seek out this nose, for
the King's affliction is sore. And wheresoever you find this nose upon
the face of a man, strike it off forthright and brin