ead to be chopped off! And I, with
an aged and much-to-be-respected mother, not to say anything of a wife
and several children of tender years! Out upon you for the scoundrel
that you are!"

"From the Sacred City to the ends of all the Eight Coasts there is no
place for me to hide," Yi Chin Ho made reply. "I am a man of wisdom, but
of what worth my wisdom here in prison? 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, being 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. "Beside, you are condemned to death."

"Your Excellency well knows that if I can repay the ten thousand strings
of cash, the Government will pardon me," Yi Chin Ho went on. "So, as I
say, if Your Excellency were to give me my freedom for a few days, being
a man of understanding, I should then repay the Government and be in
position to be of service to Your Excellency. I should be in position to
be of very great service to Your Excellency."

"Have you a plan whereby you hope to obtain this money?" asked the
Governor.

"I have," said Yi Chin Ho.

"Then come with it to me to-morrow night; I would now sleep," said the
Governor, taking up his snore where it had been interrupted.

On the following night, having again obtained leave of absence from the
jailer, Yi Chin Ho presented himself at the Governor's bedside.

"Is it you, Yi Chin Ho?" asked the Governor. "And