It is the distance which they feel to exist between themselves and the throne which makes them covet the crumbs of majesty, the odds and ends and chance splinters of royalty.
There was nothing royal about Louis Philippe Scatcherd but his name.

He had now come to man's estate, and his father, finding the Cambridge receipt to be inefficacious, had sent him abroad to travel with a tutor.

The doctor had from time to time heard tidings of this youth; he knew that he had already shown symptoms of his father's vices, but no symptoms of his father's talents; he knew that he had begun life by being dissipated, without being generous; and that at the age of twenty-one he had already suffered from delirium tremens.
It was on this account that he had expressed disapprobation, rather than surprise, when he heard that his father intended to bequeath the bulk of his large fortune to the uncontrolled will of this unfortunate boy.
"I have toiled for my money hard, and I have a right to do as I like with it.

What other satisfaction can it give me ?" The doctor assured him that he did not at all mean to dispute this.
"Louis Philippe will do well enough, you'll find," continued the baronet, understanding what was passing within his companion's breast.

"Let a young fellow sow his wild oats while he is young, and he'll be steady enough when he grows old." "But what if he never lives to get through the sowing ?" thought the doctor to himself.