"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 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 sought out
the remotest corners of the kingdom; I have traveled the Eight
Highways, searched the Eight Provinces, and sailed the seas of the Eight
Coasts.
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