Findlayson discovered all this. After his Bridge had gone safely through that terrible ordeal when the Ganges rose and struck for higher tides, Findlayson collapsed. The Bridge--But that is another story. This is this one, and there is little profit in telling two stories at once, especially in a day when one can get the two stories printed separately in the several magazines for which one writes exclusively. After the ordeal of the Kashi Bridge, Findlayson, as I have said, collapsed, and it is no wonder, as you will see for yourself when you read that other story. As the Main Girder of the Bridge itself wrote later to the Suspension Cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, "It's a wonder to me that the Sahib didn't have the _Bashi-bazouks_ earlier in the game. He suffered a terrible strain that night." To which the Cables of the Brooklyn Bridge wittily replied that while they sympathized with Findlayson, they didn't believe he really knew what strain was. "Wait until he has five lines of trolley-cars running over him all day and night. That _is_ a strain! He'd be worse cut up than ever if he had that. And yet we thrive under it. After all, for solid health, it's better to be a Bridge than a Man. When are you coming across?" Now Findlayson might have collapsed a dozen times before the Government would have cared enough to give him the vacation he needed. Not that Government is callous, like an elephant, but because it is conducted, as a witty Cobra once remarked in the jungle as he fascinated a Tigress, by a lot of Red Tapirs. Findlayson put in an application for a six months' vacation, but by the time the necessary consent had reached him the six months were up. Everybody remembers the tale of Dorkins of the Welsh Fusileers and his appointment to the Department of the Poloese, how his term of office was to be six years, and how by the time his credentials reached him his term of office had expired. So with Findlayson. On the very date of the expiration of his desired leave he received permission to go, and of course could not then do so, because it was too late. Fortunately for Findlayson, however, the Viceroy himself happened to be passing through, and Findlayson entertained him at a luncheon on the Bridge. By some curious mistake, when the nuts and raisins were passed, Findlayson had provided a plateful of steel nuts, designed to hold rivets in place, instead of the usual assortment of almonds and _hiki-ree_. "This man needs a rest," said the Viceroy, as he broke his front tooth trying to crack one of the steel nuts, and he immediately extended Findlayson's leave to twenty years without pay, for which Findlayson was very grateful. "What is the matter with the man?" asked the Viceroy, as he drove to the station with the practising Jinrikshaw of the place. [Illustration: THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE]