The Admiral pooh-poohed the whole thing and made elaborate arrangements to spend a night in the house with Jim. Jim expressed his delight at the prospect of such an adventure, and went about describing exactly what he would do to the ghost if he saw it; but he had very bad luck when the time came, with a sudden attack of sciatica which glued him to his bed. The curious thing was that however often the Admiral postponed the day for the undertaking, Jim’s sciatica inevitably returned when the day came. So time slipped away. The Admiral said he would explore the mystery alone, but it slipped his memory. So the house remained tenantless, and when the Walk was painted according to the Admiral’s instructions, Number Four had to be passed over, and consequently looked more woe-begone than ever. And the next thing the Walk knew was that it woke one morning to find strange men bringing loads of furniture, amongst which was a harp, a _forte-piano_, and a guitar-case, and that painters—not their own painters, but an entirely unknown lot—were at work scraping off the old paint. The Admiral rushed out—I am shocked to say, in his slippers and shirt-sleeves—and was told that the house was let; let, without any sort of warning or notice; let, so to speak, over the heads of the Walk; over his own head. And the men could not tell him the name of the new tenant. All they knew was that it was a lady. A lady with a name they could n’t pronounce. A foreign name. Foreign? _Foreign_?—Yes; French, by the sound of it. This was beyond anything the Admiral or the Walk had ever had to cope with. However, the Admiral mastered his indignation and contented himself with giving the painters strict and minute instructions as to the precise shade of green they were to use so as to make the house uniform with the rest. He had to go to London next day to draw his pay. We know the inevitable consequences of that excursion. The following morning he woke at midday in a very bad humour. The first thing he saw when he threw open his window, was Sempronius digging up his sweet peas; and the next was Number Four painted a creamy white. I draw a veil. It was no use appealing to the brewer. He said he had nothing to do with it; and when it was pointed out to him that the chaste uniformity of the Walk was ruined, he impertinently suggested that the entire Walk might get itself painted all over again, and painted sky-blue. So the Admiral took his time, determined to give this malapert and intrusive foreign woman—she had now become a woman—a severe lesson. A few days later the house was taken possession of by an elderly female servant—a stout and florid Bretonne, who went about, as Mrs. Poskett said, looking a figure of fun in her national costume.