"I stand beneath the mystic moon; An opiate vapor, dewey, dim Exhales from out her golden rim, And softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain-top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley." I was about entering, when a figure advanced suddenly from behind a pillar of the veranda, holding a something in its hand which glittered in the moonlight, and which rattled as it dropped from the perpendicular to the horizontal, pointing at me. "Who goes there?" said the apparition, in a hoarse voice. "Stand, and give the countersign!" I recognized the voice of the soldier-servant of the morning. There he was again, that indefatigable coachman, doing duty as sentinel with a musket in his hands. Not knowing what else to say, I replied,-- "It is I, a friend!" My good grammar was thrown away upon the brute. "The countersign," he repeated. "Pooh, pooh!" said I, "I do not know anything about the countersign. I am Mr. Shyster, who came up this morning, when you and the General were doing light-artillery practice on the lawn. Please let me go to my room." But the brute stood immovable. As I advanced, I heard him cock his musket. "Good God!" thought I, "this is no joke, after all. This stupid stable-man may have loaded his musket. What if it should go off? If I retreat, I must camp out,--no joke at this season;--rheumatism and a loss of salary, to say the least. This will never do." And I screamed,-- "General! General Van Bummel!" "Silence! or I'll march you to the guard-house," thundered the sentinel. Luckily the General lay, like Irene, "with casement open to the skies." He heard the noise. I recognized his martial tones. I hurriedly explained my situation. He gave me the word; it was Eugene; countersign, Marlborough. This satisfied the Coach-Cerberus, and I passed into bed without further mishap. The first sound I heard the next morning was the rat-tat-too of a drum. "There goes that d----d coachman again," I said to myself, and turned over for another nap; but a shrill bugle-call brought me to my seat.