"What do you here who should be in prison waiting on the chopping-block?" "Yi Chin Ho, or I'm no Governor!" cried the Governor. Straight he went to the Governor, catching him alone and arousing him from his sleep.
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. "To think that that very admirable wit of yours must go the way of the chopping-block!"Īnd so saying, he turned and went away. "Ah, what a wag you are, what a wag," he laughed. The jailer threw up his hands despairingly. "A remarkable nose, if I may say so, a most remarkable nose." I know of a nose that will save me from all my difficulties." "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. "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. "What foolishness is this? One short hour, and you but waiting for your head 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!" And all will be well with you, for I shall see to your advancement through the years, and you shall come at length to the directorship of all the prisons of Cho-sen."
#HE WILL BECOME A LAUGHTER AND A BYWORD FREE#
"Yet all will be well with me if you will but let me go free for one short hour this night. "Most worthy man, you see before you one most wretched," he began. There was one advantage to the situation-he had plenty of time in which to think. Ten thousand strings of cash he owed the government, and he lay in prison under sentence of death. Excess is to be deplored in all things, even in grafting, and Yi Chin Ho's excess had brought him to most deplorable straits. Not that he had inadvertently diverted to himself public moneys, but that he had inadvertently diverted too much. But, unlike his brethren in other lands, Yi Chin Ho was in jail. He was a man of parts, and-who shall say?-perhaps in no wise worse than politicians the world over. In the morning calm of Korea, when its peace and tranquillity truly merited its ancient name, "Cho-sen," there lived a politician by name Yi Chin Ho.
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