Short Stories
Pak Chung Chang trembled. Well he knew the King's busi-
ness 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 nerve-
less 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 afflic-
tion. In that he failed to cure, the Court physician has had noth-
ing else than his head chopped off. From all the Eight Provinces
have the physicians come to wait upon the King. Wise consulta-
tion have they held, and they have decided that for a remedy for
the King's affliction nothing else is required than a nose, a cer-
tain 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 physi-
cians 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 bring
it in all haste to the Court, for the King must be cured. Go, and
come not back until your search is rewarded.'
"And so I departed upon my quest," said Yi Chin Ho. "I have
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