168.] they communicate with one another by telegraphic signs.

One of their words, "RAGOTIN (Stumpy)," whom does the reader think it designates?
Papa himself, the Royal Majesty of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I., he to his rebellious children is tyrant "Stumpy," and no better; being indeed short of stature, and growing ever thicker, and surlier in these provocations!-- Such incurable discrepancies have risen in the Berlin Palace: fountains of bitterness flowing ever wider, till they made life all bitter for Son and for Father; necessitating the proud Son to hypocrisies towards his terrible Father, which were very foreign to the proud youth, had there been any other resource.

But there was none, now or afterwards.

Even when the young man, driven to reflection and insight by intolerable miseries, had begun to recognize the worth of his surly Rhadamanthine Father, and the intrinsic wisdom of much that he had meant with him, the Father hardly ever could, or could only by fits, completely recognize the Son's worth.

Rugged suspicious Papa requires always to be humored, cajoled, even when our feeling towards him is genuine and loyal.
Friedrich, to the last, we can perceive, has to assume masquerade in addressing him, in writing to him,--and in spite of real love, must have felt it a relief when such a thing was over.