ctions and vagueness: Michael demanded
his family tree. The hymn 'Faith of our Fathers' ringing through a
Notting Dale mission-hall moved him to demand his birthright of family
history.

"Well, I'll tell you, Michael," said his mother at last. "Your father
ought to have been the Earl of Saxby--only--something went wrong--some
certificate or something."

"An Earl?" cried Michael, staggered by the splendid news. "But--but,
mother, we met Lord Saxby. Who was that?"

"He's a relation. Only, please don't tell people about this, because
they wouldn't understand. It's all very muddled and difficult."

"My father ought to have been Lord Saxby? Why wasn't he? Mother, was he
illegitimate?"

"Michael, how can you talk like that? Of course not."

Michael blushed because his mother blushed.

"I'm sorry, mother, I thought he might have been. People are. You read
about them often enough."

Michael decided that as he must not tell Chator, Martindale and Rigg the
truth, he would, at any rate, join himself on to the House of Saxby
collaterally. To his disappointment, he discovered that the only
reference in history to an Earl of Saxby made out that particular one to
be a most pestilent Roundhead. So Michael gave up being the Legitimist
Earl of Saxby, and settled instead to be descended through the
indiscretion of an early king from the Stuarts. Michael grew more and
more ecclesiastical as time went on. He joined several Jacobite
societies, and accompanied Mr. Prout on the latter's London visit to a
reception at Clifford's Inn Hall in honour of the Legitimist Emperor of
Byzantium. Michael was very much impressed by kissing the hand of an
Emperor, and even more deeply impressed by the Scottish piper who
marched up and down during the light refreshment at one shilling a head
afterwards. Mr. Prout, accompanied by Michael, Chator, Martindale and
Rigg, spent the Sunday of his stay in town by attending early Mass in
Kensington, High Mass in Holborn, Benediction in Shoreditch and Evensong
in Paddington. He also joined several more guilds, confraternities and
societies and presented Michael with one hair from the five hairs he
possessed of a lock of Prince Charlie's hair (authentic) before he
returned to Bournemouth. This single hair was a great responsibility to
Michael, until he placed it in a silver locket to wear round his neck.
During that year occurred what the papers called a Crisis in the Church,
and Michael and his three friend