Short Stories
Were I free, well I know I could seek out and obtain the money
wherewith to repay the government. I know of a nose that will
save me from all my difficulties."
"A nose!" cried the jailer.
"A nose," said Yi Chin Ho. "A remarkable nose, if I may say
so, a most remarkable nose."
The jailer threw up his hands despairingly. "Ah, what a
wag you are, what a wag," he laughed. "To think that that very
admirable wit of yours must go the way of the chopping-block!"
And so saying, he turned and went away. But in the end, be-
ing a man soft of head and heart, when the night was well along
he permitted Yi Chin Ho to go.
Straight he went to the Governor, catching him alone and
arousing him from his sleep.
"Yi Chin Ho, or I'm no Governor!" cried the Governor. "What
do you here who should be in prison waiting on the chopping-
block?"
"I pray your excellency to listen to me," said Yi Chin Ho,
squatting on his hams by the bedside and lighting his pipe from
the fire-box. "A dead man is without value. It is true, I am as a
dead man, without value to the government, to your excellency,
or to myself. But if, so to say, your excellency were to give me
my freedom—"
"Impossible!" cried the Governor. "Besides, you are con-
demned to death."
"Your excellency well knows that if I can repay the ten thou-
sand strings of cash, the government will pardon me,' Yi Chin
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