and feels there acutely where the shoe pinches,--much too acutely,
thinks the Teutschmeister in his soft list-slippers, at
Mergentheim in the safe Wurzburg region.] "We will not be
concerned in the adventure at all; we wish you well through it!"
Never was a spirited young fellow placed in more impossible
position. His Brother Casimir (George was then in Hungary), his
Cousin Joachim Kur-Brandenburg, Friedrich Duke of Liegnitz, a
Silesian connection of the Family, ["Duke Friedrich II.:" comes by
mothers from Kurfurst Friedrich I.; marries Margraf George's
Daughter even now, 1519 (Hubner, tt. 179, 100, 101).] consulted,
advised, negotiated to all lengths, Albert's own effort was
incessant. "Agree with King Sigismund," said they; "Uncle
Sigismund, your good Mother's Brother; a King softly inclined to
us all!"--"How agree?" answered Albert: "He insists on the Homage,
which I have promised not to give!" Casimir went and came, to
Konigsberg, to Berlin; went once himself to Cracow, to the King,
on this errand: but it was a case of "Yes AND No;" not to be
solved by Casimir.

As to King Sigismund, he was patient with it to a degree; made the
friendliest paternal professions;--testifying withal, That the
claim was undeniable; and could by him, Sigismund, never be
foregone with the least shadow of honor, and of course never
would: "My dear Nephew can consider whether his dissolute,
vain-minded, half-heretical Ritterdom, nay whether this Prussian
fraction of it, is in a condition to take Poland by the beard in
an unjust quarrel; or can hope to do Tannenberg over again in the
reverse way, by Beelzehub's help?"--

For seven years, Albert held out in this intermediate state,