early learning the secret of more than one great general's
success--to know his men. In later life he could call many a man by
name, and knew just what each could do. While they responded with a
close affection and the nickname by which he will be known to
history--"Bobs."

It is said that Napoleon expected his officers to know the names and
personal histories of every man in their command. As another result of
Roberts' fellowship with the rank and file he became a crack shot and
expert horseman. During the fighting in the mutiny of Indian sepoys, he
proved himself a good swordsman as well; and even when he became
Commander-in-chief, he would ride with a tent-pegging team of his own
staff.

It was a long and thorough service that he was destined to receive. He
joined the Quartermaster-General's office before the mutiny broke out,
and remained in it for more than twenty years. During this period he
gradually worked his way up from one post of responsibility to another,
doing it so gradually that even he himself hardly noticed the advance.
On one occasion, for example, he superintended all the arrangements for
embarking the Bengal Division, which sailed from Calcutta to take part in
an expedition against Abyssinia.

But how he must have chafed at the long delay in getting into the field.
He asked his father more than once to get him transferred to Burma, where
war had broken out and there was a chance for active service. The
transfer was not granted.

The only thing that came to break up the humdrum of those first years was
a cyclone. It was actually welcomed; anything for a change! Roberts
gives a detailed account of it in his autobiography. He and a native
servant were caught out in the open, when the storm descended with little
warning.

"I shouted to him (the servant) as loudly as I could," he relates, "but
the uproar was so terrific that he could not hear a word, and there was
nothing for it but to try and make my own way home. The darkness was
profound. As I was walking carefully along, I suddenly came in contact
with an object, which a timely flash of lightning showed me was a column,
standing in exactly the opposite direction from my own house. I could
now locate myself correctly, and the lightning becoming every moment more
vivid, I was enabled to grope my way by slow degrees to the mess, where I
expected to find some one to show me my way home; but the servants, who
knew from experience the p