A Novel Password.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1183, 26 September 1885, Page 6

A Novel Password.

During a recent campaign, the pickets of, a certain regiment fonnd considerable difficulty in preventing tie men from afeseniing themBolves without leave — a circumstance for _' the large consiegent of pretty girls of the town— small blame to them 1 — were chiefly aocountable. One particularly sultry evening, while the sentinels were pacing their beats with their tongues fairly hanging out of their mouths with heat, and wontlering" whether the pirates -in the mes3 tant would drink every last drop of beer before the " relief came, one of the - guards observed a private approaching,' who was staggering along under the combined load of much conviviality and an enormous watermelon under each arm. "Who goes there?" " Friend," responded the truant.^ , J " Advance, friend, and give the counter- 1 wgn" - ' | 'Hain't got no countersign," amiably re- j > pliedthe private { "but I'll give yer— er— aJ warmellinl" " J ' Pretty soon the officer of the day came routtS and said to the sentinel, who was absorbed in munching a huge piece of watermelon stuok on the end of hia bayonet — "Did Perkins pass you just now ?" " Yes, sir." • " Did he give you the countersign ?" inquired ' the lieutenant, taking a bite as the man presented arms. "" Well, no," said the sentinel, confidently. 11 The password was-" Cholera," but he said " Watermelon," so I passed him and put the other half in your tent." "Did. eh?" mused tha officer. '"Hum! watermelon, eh?" Well, I suppose that was - near.enoughl ' Lord Byron and the Goose, Lobd Maljiesbus"?, in his memoirs, gives ' the following amusing story of the authdrof " Don Juan," as told to him by the Countess Guiceiol^: — "He (Byron) wrote all the jast - cantoi (of Don Juan) on play-bills, or on any odd piece of paper on hand, and wi& repeated gtafeea of gin-punch at his side. He then used. to rush out of his room 1 and read to her • (the Countess) what be had written, making - many alterations and laughing immoderately. Bhe was very, proud and fond of him, but de- . scribed him as havjng a very capricious tem>><per, and with nothing of the passion which prcvades hjs. poetry, and which he was in the : '?:/habifc of ridiculing — in fact, with a cold, temperament. With all . his abuse of JSngland he insisted on feet ping up old customs in small (hinge, 'such- as having hot cross buna on . Good Friday and roast goose on Michaelmas ' Day. Tbia last fancy led to a grotesque result. After buying a gooee, and fearing it might ' ' iM-too Jeao, ho fed it every day for a month previously, to thai the poet and the bird be- . s , mutually attached that, when September 29ih' an ived, he could not kill it, bat Jtaugh^anotb/r, and had the pet goeee swung ' Wicage r under tiircarriage when he travelled, ■c that aher four jean he moving about % W*b four g«6M." ;