While things stood thus, one of those events occurred which form so constant a characteristic of Indian life and add so formidable a contribution to the difficulties of government. How is it possible to have continuity of action, settled policy, completeness of design, when existence is so shifting that no man who begins a work is likely to see its close? Promotion or leave or the chances of health keep the hierarchy of Indian officials for ever on the move. One man goes home to Europe, and his departure involves the change of a dozen others, each of whom is waiting anxiously for an advance and is entitled to step into his fellow's shoes. One of these vicissitudes befell the Board, for poor Fotheringham fell violently ill, and for some time seemed likely to create a permanent vacancy. A week's fever left him a skeleton, but a live one, and his only chance of re-established health was immediate flight for home. Accordingly, in fewer hours than it takes an English lady days to determine where she will spend her summer holiday, the Fotheringham establishment had moved off the scene. The fine barouche--the Australian carriage-horses--the lovely Arabs on which the Miss Fotheringhams took their morning exercise--the pretty garden where their mamma received society to tea and croquet--the dining-room where the Senior Member had regaled his friends--the library where he assailed his enemies--the piano at which the young ladies sang tremulous duets--the arm-chair in which Fotheringham had sate and thought or seemed to think--all became matters of the past. A neat paper, copied out by the elder Miss Fotheringham and containing the scanty catalogue of an Indian official's worldly belongings, was circulated in the Station, each item at so many rupees for those who liked to buy. Before the week was over the house was stripped, the simple treasures were scattered to a dozen new possessors, and the Fotheringhams, as the Arab folds his tent and glides silently away, had departed. The waters of the official life rolled smoothly over them, and next day the 'Dustypore Gazette' announced with laconic severity that Mr. Snaply had on such and such a morning taken over charge, as Member of the Salt Board, from Mr. Fotheringham, during the absence of the latter on sick leave, or pending further orders. Now Snaply was known as the crossest man in the Service, and it cheered poor Fotheringham, who was almost too ill and weak to care about anything, to know that his _locum tenens_ would not allow Blunt to repose on a bed of roses if he could help it.