"Cannot you renounce the Heir-Apparentship, then; your little Brother is a fine youth.

Give it up; and go, unmolested, to the--in fact to the Devil: Cannot you ?"--"If your Majesty, against the honor of my Mother, declare that I am not your eldest son: Yes, so; not otherwise, ever!" modestly but steadily persists the young man, whenever this expedient is proposed to him,--as perhaps it already sometimes is.

Whereat the desperate Father can only snort indignantly futile.

A case growing nearly desperate.

Desperate, yes, on all hands: unless one had the "high mast" above alluded to, with two pulleys and ropes; and could see a certain Pair of Scoundrels mount rapidly thither, what hope is there for anybody?
A violent crisis does not last, however; that is one certainty in it.