The Admiral was greatly troubled. He could only stammer that he supposed it was the change in the weather. "Well," said Madame, "I cannot let our good friends go on like this. Why, we should be unable to live together in the Walk, if we were not all on excellent terms with each other." And so the next morning all the inhabitants of the Walk received a pretty little three-cornered note, asking them to an _al fresco_ tea-party that evening, under the elm. Jack had never spent such a Sunday, and privately registered a vow he would never spend such another. Doctor Sternroyd did all his own housekeeping; he said he would rather spend his money on a book than on a cook. He invariably rose at six. He routed Jack out at that hour. At half-past six he was at work in his study, even on Sundays. At nine he made his breakfast, a thin cup of tea and a very thin rasher of bacon. What Jack did between six and nine, I do not know. After breakfast the Doctor went back to his study and he gave Jack his great manuscript work on "Prehistoric Remains found in the Alluvial Deposit of the Estuary of the Thames, together with Observations on the Cave-dwellers of Ethiopia," to while away the time. When the Doctor went to church he locked Jack in his room. After church he went for a long walk and forgot all about Jack. And he had forgotten all about him when he came back, so that Jack was forced to raise a perfect riot before he could get released. By midday on Monday Jack had worked his way through every edible thing in the house, and on Monday afternoon the Doctor not only had to go and see the Archbishop of Canterbury on the subject of the licence, but had been strictly enjoined by Jack to bring home food. Fortunately for Madame’s tea-party, that Monday evening was an ideal one. June had come and the roses in the little gardens had taken the opportunity to burst into bloom. The elm was in its fresh summer garb. The setting sun shone level through its leaves and turned them all to burnished gold. It gilded the entire Walk, and set the panes in the windows flashing and flaming; even the dirty little oil lamps were glorified as they reflected the golden blaze. The river shimmered with opal and amethyst; and a great barge, drifting down with the tide, might have borne Cleopatra and all her retinue, so gorgeously was it transfigured. Not all the Walk was present. The Doctor, as we have just seen, was engaged with the Archbishop, and with his own marketing. Miss Barbara had sent a polite excuse. Her actual words were "Miss Barbara Pennymint presents her Compliments to Madame Lachesnais and is much obliged for her kind invitation to tea. Miss Barbara Pennymint much regrets she cannot avail herself of Madame Lachesnais’ proffered hospitality as I am engaged in an educational experiment." Mrs. Brooke-Hoskyn, of course, was absent, as usual, for purely personal and private reasons.