Sir Peter Antrobus—Admiral Sir Peter Antrobus—was not a person to be trifled with, I assure you. In the first place, he lived in the corner house as you entered the Walk. This gave him a sort of prescriptive right to sovereignty. You must also consider that he was an Admiral and that his gallantry had earned him a knighthood. He was, indeed, the only specimen of actual nobility the Walk had to show, though Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn could, by much pressure, be induced to admit, that if everyone had his rights and if lawyers were not such scoundrels, he himself—but he always broke off there and left you wondering what degree of the peerage he had claims to. But Sir Peter was undoubtedly a knight, and his title gave him the _pas_ in all the Walk’s social functions. Not only that, but the Walk looked up to him as its natural leader and adviser. None of the inhabitants would ever dream of making any little improvements to their houses without having first consulted the Admiral. It was he who determined when the lawn needed mowing, the Gazebo trimming, and it was he who fixed the date for painting the wood-work and railings of the houses. Also, he chose the colour: a good, useful green; and anyone who had dared depart from the precise shade chosen by him, would have heard of it. He was to all intents and purposes an autocrat, and the Walk trembled at his nod. His rule was very gentle, however. He kept his one remaining eye steadily fixed on the Walk; but although it wore a threatening frown and could flash in fury, the expression lurking in its depth was one of affection. He loved the Walk with all his heart; he was proud of it with all his soul. His one ambition was to keep it as spick and span as his own quarterdeck had been. I think, indeed, he confused it in his mind to some extent with that quarterdeck, for in his little garden he had erected the model of a mast, on which he hoisted the Union Jack with his own hands regularly at sunrise, and as regularly struck it at sunset. And once, when the Regent had gone by in the Royal barge on his way to Richmond, he had come out in gala uniform, and dipped it in a Royal salute in the finest style. The Admiral was salt from head to foot and right through. He used to call himself a piece of salt junk: for he had been at sea ever since he was a lad of ten. His bravery and high spirits had cleared the road for him at a time when the sea was a path of glory for British mariners, and his culminating recollection was the battle of Copenhagen, in which he had taken part with Nelson. His only cause for complaint was that he had been put on half-pay too early. Was not a man of sixty, hale, hearty, and in the full possession of all his faculties, worth two whipper-snappers of thirty? And did the loss of an eye disqualify him? Could he not spy the enemy as quickly with one eye as with two? As a matter of fact, you could only use one eye with a