The organist drank as deeply as the occasion warranted.

"Don't look so glum, man," he said; "I'm not always as bad as this,
because I haven't always the means. Old Martelet doesn't give me brandy
every day."

Westray smoothed away the deprecating expression with which he had felt
constrained to discountenance such excesses, and set Mr Sharnall's
tongue going again with a question:

"What did you say Joliffe used to go away for?"

"Oh, it's a long story; it's the nebuly coat again. I spoke of it in
the church--the silver and sea-green that turned his head. He would
have it he wasn't a Joliffe at all, but a Blandamer, and rightful heir
to Fording. As a boy, he went to Cullerne Grammar School, and did well,
and got a scholarship at Oxford. He did still better there, and just
when he seemed starting strong in the race of life, this nebuly coat
craze seized him and crept over his mind, like the paralysis that crept
over his body later on."

"I don't quite follow you," Westray said. "Why did he think he was a
Blandamer? Did he not know who his father was?"

"He was brought up as a son of old Michael Joliffe, a yeoman who died
fifteen years ago. But Michael married a woman who called herself a
widow, and brought a three-year-old son ready-made to his wedding; and
that son was Martin. Old Michael made the boy his own, was proud of his
cleverness, would have him go to college, and left him all he had.
There was no talk of Martin being anything but a Joliffe till Oxford
puffed him up, and then he got this crank, and spent the rest of his
life trying to find out who his father was. It was a forty-years'
wandering in the wilderness; he found this clue and that, and thought at
last he had climbed Pisgah and could see the promised land. But he had
to be content with the sight, or mirage I suppose it was, and died
before he tasted the milk and honey."

"What was his connection with the nebuly coat? What made him think he
was a Blandamer?"

"Oh, I can't go into that now," the organist said; "I have told you too
much, perhaps, already. You won't let Miss Joliffe guess I have said
anything, will you? She is Michael Joliffe's own child--his only
child--but she loved her half-brother dearly, and doesn't like his
cranks being talked about. Of course, the Cullerne wags had many a tale
to tell of him, and when he came back, greyer each time and
wilder-looking, from his wanderings, they called him `Old Nebuly,' and
th