Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1900 — Ready for Duty. [ARTICLE]

Ready for Duty.

J. W. Scherer, in his "Daily Life During the Indian Mutiny," says that when the rains fell, bringing with them fever and cholera, the horrors of the campaign were, of course, redoubled. When the outbreak came, some men, holding isolated positions until the last moment of safety, were compelled to flee through almost incredible difficulties and dangers. One man, Mowbray Thomson, when interrogated about the hardships he had undergone, spoke of them with the utmost simplicity, as if they were ordinary circumstances, to be looked for in "the day’s work” of life. “Some years after a London banker, sitting next me at dinner, began talking about Thomson, and asked me if I had ever met him. I told him that I had seen.him every day, for a year or two. “Well,” said he, "I met him once in London, and I shall never forget an answer he made to a question of mine.” “What was the question?” “I asked him, ‘When you got once more among your countrymen, and the whole terrible thing was over, what on earth was the first thing you did?” “ ‘Did!’ cried he. ‘Why, I went and reported myself as present and ready for duty!’ ”