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 This copy of the TypeScript handbook was
created on Wednesday, September 28, 2022
against commit c3f0d8 with TypeScript 4.8.
Table of Contents

The TypeScript Handbook Your first step to learn TypeScript

The Basics Step one in learning TypeScript: The basic types.
Everyday Types The language primitives.
Understand how TypeScript uses JavaScript knowledge
Narrowing
to reduce the amount of type syntax in your projects.
More on Functions Learn about how Functions work in TypeScript.
How TypeScript describes the shapes of JavaScript
Object Types
objects.
An overview of the ways in which you can create more
Creating Types from Types
types from existing types.
Generics Types which take parameters
Keyof Type Operator Using the keyof operator in type contexts.
Typeof Type Operator Using the typeof operator in type contexts.
Indexed Access Types Using Type['a'] syntax to access a subset of a type.
Create types which act like if statements in the type
Conditional Types
system.
Mapped Types Generating types by re-using an existing type.
Generating mapping types which change properties via
Template Literal Types
template literal strings.
Classes How classes work in TypeScript
How JavaScript handles communicating across file
Modules
boundaries.
The TypeScript Handbook

About this Handbook

Over 20 years after its introduction to the programming community, JavaScript is now one of the
most widespread cross-platform languages ever created. Starting as a small scripting language for
adding trivial interactivity to webpages, JavaScript has grown to be a language of choice for both
frontend and backend applications of every size. While the size, scope, and complexity of programs
written in JavaScript has grown exponentially, the ability of the JavaScript language to express the
relationships between different units of code has not. Combined with JavaScript's rather peculiar
runtime semantics, this mismatch between language and program complexity has made JavaScript
development a difficult task to manage at scale.

The most common kinds of errors that programmers write can be described as type errors: a
certain kind of value was used where a different kind of value was expected. This could be due to
simple typos, a failure to understand the API surface of a library, incorrect assumptions about
runtime behavior, or other errors. The goal of TypeScript is to be a static typechecker for JavaScript
programs - in other words, a tool that runs before your code runs (static) and ensures that the types
of the program are correct (typechecked).

If you are coming to TypeScript without a JavaScript background, with the intention of TypeScript
being your first language, we recommend you first start reading the documentation on either the
Microsoft Learn JavaScript tutorial or read JavaScript at the Mozilla Web Docs. If you have
experience in other languages, you should be able to pick up JavaScript syntax quite quickly by
reading the handbook.

How is this Handbook Structured

The handbook is split into two sections:

The Handbook

The TypeScript Handbook is intended to be a comprehensive document that explains TypeScript

to everyday programmers. You can read the handbook by going from top to bottom in the left-
hand navigation.

You should expect each chapter or page to provide you with a strong understanding of the given
concepts. The TypeScript Handbook is not a complete language specification, but it is intended to
be a comprehensive guide to all of the language's features and behaviors.
 A reader who completes the walkthrough should be able to:

Read and understand commonly-used TypeScript syntax and patterns

Explain the effects of important compiler options

Correctly predict type system behavior in most cases

In the interests of clarity and brevity, the main content of the Handbook will not explore every
edge case or minutiae of the features being covered. You can find more details on particular
concepts in the reference articles.

Reference Files

The reference section below the handbook in the navigation is built to provide a richer
understanding of how a particular part of TypeScript works. You can read it top-to-bottom, but
each section aims to provide a deeper explanation of a single concept - meaning there is no aim
for continuity.

Non-Goals

The Handbook is also intended to be a concise document that can be comfortably read in a few
hours. Certain topics won't be covered in order to keep things short.

Specifically, the Handbook does not fully introduce core JavaScript basics like functions, classes, and
closures. Where appropriate, we'll include links to background reading that you can use to read up
on those concepts.

The Handbook also isn't intended to be a replacement for a language specification. In some cases,
edge cases or formal descriptions of behavior will be skipped in favor of high-level, easier-to-
understand explanations. Instead, there are separate reference pages that more precisely and
formally describe many aspects of TypeScript's behavior. The reference pages are not intended for
readers unfamiliar with TypeScript, so they may use advanced terminology or reference topics you
haven't read about yet.

Finally, the Handbook won't cover how TypeScript interacts with other tools, except where
necessary. Topics like how to configure TypeScript with webpack, rollup, parcel, react, babel, closure,
lerna, rush, bazel, preact, vue, angular, svelte, jquery, yarn, or npm are out of scope - you can find
these resources elsewhere on the web.

Get Started
Before getting started with The Basics, we recommend reading one of the following introductory
pages. These introductions are intended to highlight key similarities and differences between
TypeScript and your favored programming language, and clear up common misconceptions
specific to those languages.

TypeScript for New Programmers

TypeScript for JavaScript Programmers

TypeScript for OOP Programmers

TypeScript for Functional Programmers

Otherwise, jump to The Basics or grab a copy in Epub or PDF form.

The Basics
Each and every value in JavaScript has a set of behaviors you can observe from running different
operations. That sounds abstract, but as a quick example, consider some operations we might run
on a variable named message .

// Accessing the property 'toLowerCase'

// on 'message' and then calling it
message.toLowerCase();

// Calling 'message'
message();

If we break this down, the first runnable line of code accesses a property called toLowerCase and
then calls it. The second one tries to call message directly.

But assuming we don't know the value of message - and that's pretty common - we can't reliably
say what results we'll get from trying to run any of this code. The behavior of each operation
depends entirely on what value we had in the first place.

Is message callable?

Does it have a property called toLowerCase on it?

If it does, is toLowerCase even callable?

If both of these values are callable, what do they return?

The answers to these questions are usually things we keep in our heads when we write JavaScript,
and we have to hope we got all the details right.

Let's say message was defined in the following way.

const message = "Hello World!";

As you can probably guess, if we try to run message.toLowerCase() , we'll get the same string
only in lower-case.
What about that second line of code? If you're familiar with JavaScript, you'll know this fails with an
exception:

TypeError: message is not a function

It'd be great if we could avoid mistakes like this.

When we run our code, the way that our JavaScript runtime chooses what to do is by figuring out
the type of the value - what sorts of behaviors and capabilities it has. That's part of what that
TypeError is alluding to - it's saying that the string "Hello World!" cannot be called as a
function.

For some values, such as the primitives string and number , we can identify their type at runtime
using the typeof operator. But for other things like functions, there's no corresponding runtime
mechanism to identify their types. For example, consider this function:

function fn(x) {
return x.flip();
}

We can observe by reading the code that this function will only work if given an object with a
callable flip property, but JavaScript doesn't surface this information in a way that we can check
while the code is running. The only way in pure JavaScript to tell what fn does with a particular
value is to call it and see what happens. This kind of behavior makes it hard to predict what code
will do before it runs, which means it's harder to know what your code is going to do while you're
writing it.

Seen in this way, a type is the concept of describing which values can be passed to fn and which
will crash. JavaScript only truly provides dynamic typing - running the code to see what happens.

The alternative is to use a static type system to make predictions about what code is expected
before it runs.

Static type-checking
Think back to that TypeError we got earlier from trying to call a string as a function. Most
people don't like to get any sorts of errors when running their code - those are considered bugs!
And when we write new code, we try our best to avoid introducing new bugs.
If we add just a bit of code, save our file, re-run the code, and immediately see the error, we might
be able to isolate the problem quickly; but that's not always the case. We might not have tested the
feature thoroughly enough, so we might never actually run into a potential error that would be
thrown! Or if we were lucky enough to witness the error, we might have ended up doing large
refactorings and adding a lot of different code that we're forced to dig through.

Ideally, we could have a tool that helps us find these bugs before our code runs. That's what a static
type-checker like TypeScript does. Static types systems describe the shapes and behaviors of what
our values will be when we run our programs. A type-checker like TypeScript uses that information
and tells us when things might be going off the rails.

const message = "hello!";

message();

This
This expression
expression is
is not
not callable.
callable.
Type
Type 'String'
'String' has
has no
no call
call signatures.
signatures.

Running that last sample with TypeScript will give us an error message before we run the code in
the first place.

Non-exception Failures
So far we've been discussing certain things like runtime errors - cases where the JavaScript runtime
tells us that it thinks something is nonsensical. Those cases come up because the ECMAScript
specification has explicit instructions on how the language should behave when it runs into
something unexpected.

For example, the specification says that trying to call something that isn't callable should throw an
error. Maybe that sounds like "obvious behavior", but you could imagine that accessing a property
that doesn't exist on an object should throw an error too. Instead, JavaScript gives us different
behavior and returns the value undefined :

const user = {
name: "Daniel",
age: 26,
};

user.location; // returns undefined

Ultimately, a static type system has to make the call over what code should be flagged as an error in
its system, even if it's "valid" JavaScript that won't immediately throw an error. In TypeScript, the
following code produces an error about location not being defined:

const user = {
name: "Daniel",
age: 26,
};

user.location;

Property
Property 'location'
'location' does
does not
not exist
exist on
on type
type '{
'{ name:
name: string;
string; age:
age: number;
number;
}'. }'.

While sometimes that implies a trade-off in what you can express, the intent is to catch legitimate
bugs in our programs. And TypeScript catches a lot of legitimate bugs.

For example: typos,

const announcement = "Hello World!";

// How quickly can you spot the typos?

announcement.toLocaleLowercase();
announcement.toLocalLowerCase();

// We probably meant to write this...

announcement.toLocaleLowerCase();

uncalled functions,

function flipCoin() {
// Meant to be Math.random()
return Math.random < 0.5;

Operator
Operator '<'
'<' cannot
cannot be
be applied
applied to
to types
types '()
'() =>
=> number'
number' and
and 'number'.
'number'.

or basic logic errors.

 const value = Math.random() < 0.5 ? "a" : "b";
if (value !== "a") {
// ...
} else if (value === "b") {

This
This condition
condition will
will always
always return
return 'false'
'false' since
since the
the types
types '"a"'
'"a"' and
and '"b"'
'"b"'
have nohave
overlap.
no overlap.

// Oops, unreachable
}

Types for Tooling

TypeScript can catch bugs when we make mistakes in our code. That's great, but TypeScript can
also prevent us from making those mistakes in the first place.

The type-checker has information to check things like whether we're accessing the right properties
on variables and other properties. Once it has that information, it can also start suggesting which
properties you might want to use.

That means TypeScript can be leveraged for editing code too, and the core type-checker can
provide error messages and code completion as you type in the editor. That's part of what people
often refer to when they talk about tooling in TypeScript.

import express from "express";

const app = express();

app.get("/", function (req, res) {

res.sen
send
}); sendDate

sendfile
app.listen(3000);
sendFile

TypeScript takes tooling seriously, and that goes beyond completions and errors as you type. An
editor that supports TypeScript can deliver "quick fixes" to automatically fix errors, refactorings to
easily re-organize code, and useful navigation features for jumping to definitions of a variable, or
finding all references to a given variable. All of this is built on top of the type-checker and is fully
cross-platform, so it's likely that your favorite editor has TypeScript support available.
 tsc , the TypeScript compiler
We've been talking about type-checking, but we haven't yet used our type-checker. Let's get
acquainted with our new friend tsc , the TypeScript compiler. First we'll need to grab it via npm.

npm install -g typescript

This installs the TypeScript Compiler tsc globally. You can use npx or similar tools if you'd prefer to
run tsc from a local node_modules package instead.

Now let's move to an empty folder and try writing our first TypeScript program: hello.ts :

// Greets the world.

console.log("Hello world!");

Notice there are no frills here; this "hello world" program looks identical to what you'd write for a
"hello world" program in JavaScript. And now let's type-check it by running the command tsc
which was installed for us by the typescript package.

tsc hello.ts

Tada!

Wait, "tada" what exactly? We ran tsc and nothing happened! Well, there were no type errors, so
we didn't get any output in our console since there was nothing to report.

But check again - we got some file output instead. If we look in our current directory, we'll see a
hello.js file next to hello.ts . That's the output from our hello.ts file after tsc compiles
or transforms it into a plain JavaScript file. And if we check the contents, we'll see what TypeScript
spits out after it processes a .ts file:

// Greets the world.

console.log("Hello world!");
In this case, there was very little for TypeScript to transform, so it looks identical to what we wrote.
The compiler tries to emit clean readable code that looks like something a person would write.
While that's not always so easy, TypeScript indents consistently, is mindful of when our code spans
across different lines of code, and tries to keep comments around.

What about if we did introduce a type-checking error? Let's rewrite hello.ts :

// This is an industrial-grade general-purpose greeter function:

function greet(person, date) {
console.log(`Hello ${person}, today is ${date}!`);
}

greet("Brendan");

If we run tsc hello.ts again, notice that we get an error on the command line!

Expected 2 arguments, but got 1.

TypeScript is telling us we forgot to pass an argument to the greet function, and rightfully so. So
far we've only written standard JavaScript, and yet type-checking was still able to find problems
with our code. Thanks TypeScript!

Emitting with Errors

One thing you might not have noticed from the last example was that our hello.js file changed
again. If we open that file up then we'll see that the contents still basically look the same as our
input file. That might be a bit surprising given the fact that tsc reported an error about our code,
but this is based on one of TypeScript's core values: much of the time, you will know better than
TypeScript.

To reiterate from earlier, type-checking code limits the sorts of programs you can run, and so there's
a tradeoff on what sorts of things a type-checker finds acceptable. Most of the time that's okay, but
there are scenarios where those checks get in the way. For example, imagine yourself migrating
JavaScript code over to TypeScript and introducing type-checking errors. Eventually you'll get
around to cleaning things up for the type-checker, but that original JavaScript code was already
working! Why should converting it over to TypeScript stop you from running it?

So TypeScript doesn't get in your way. Of course, over time, you may want to be a bit more
defensive against mistakes, and make TypeScript act a bit more strictly. In that case, you can use the
noEmitOnError compiler option. Try changing your hello.ts file and running tsc with that
flag:

tsc --noEmitOnError hello.ts

You'll notice that hello.js never gets updated.

Explicit Types
Up until now, we haven't told TypeScript what person or date are. Let's edit the code to tell
TypeScript that person is a string , and that date should be a Date object. We'll also use the
toDateString() method on date .

function greet(person: string, date: Date) {

console.log(`Hello ${person}, today is ${date.toDateString()}!`);
}

What we did was add type annotations on person and date to describe what types of values
greet can be called with. You can read that signature as " greet takes a person of type
string , and a date of type Date ".

With this, TypeScript can tell us about other cases where greet might have been called incorrectly.
For example...

function greet(person: string, date: Date) {

console.log(`Hello ${person}, today is ${date.toDateString()}!`);
}

greet("Maddison", Date());

Argument
Argument of
of type
type 'string'
'string' is
is not
not assignable
assignable to
to parameter
parameter of
of type
type 'Date'.
'Date'.

Huh? TypeScript reported an error on our second argument, but why?

Perhaps surprisingly, calling Date() in JavaScript returns a string . On the other hand,
constructing a Date with new Date() actually gives us what we were expecting.

Anyway, we can quickly fix up the error:

function greet(person: string, date: Date) {

console.log(`Hello ${person}, today is ${date.toDateString()}!`);
}

greet("Maddison", new Date());

Keep in mind, we don't always have to write explicit type annotations. In many cases, TypeScript can
even just infer (or "figure out") the types for us even if we omit them.

let msg = "hello there!";

let msg: string

Even though we didn't tell TypeScript that msg had the type string it was able to figure that out.
That's a feature, and it's best not to add annotations when the type system would end up inferring
the same type anyway.

Note: The message bubble inside the previous code sample is what your editor would show if you had
hovered over the word.

Erased Types
Let's take a look at what happens when we compile the above function greet with tsc to output
JavaScript:

"use strict";
function greet(person, date) {
console.log("Hello ".concat(person, ", today is ").concat(date.toDateS
}
greet("Maddison", new Date());
Notice two things here:

1. Our person and date parameters no longer have type annotations.

2. Our "template string" - that string that used backticks (the ` character) - was converted to
plain strings with concatenations.

More on that second point later, but let's now focus on that first point. Type annotations aren't part
of JavaScript (or ECMAScript to be pedantic), so there really aren't any browsers or other runtimes
that can just run TypeScript unmodified. That's why TypeScript needs a compiler in the first place -
it needs some way to strip out or transform any TypeScript-specific code so that you can run it.
Most TypeScript-specific code gets erased away, and likewise, here our type annotations were
completely erased.

Remember: Type annotations never change the runtime behavior of your program.

Downleveling
One other difference from the above was that our template string was rewritten from

`Hello ${person}, today is ${date.toDateString()}!`;

to

"Hello " + person + ", today is " + date.toDateString() + "!";

Why did this happen?

Template strings are a feature from a version of ECMAScript called ECMAScript 2015 (a.k.a.
ECMAScript 6, ES2015, ES6, etc. - don't ask). TypeScript has the ability to rewrite code from newer
versions of ECMAScript to older ones such as ECMAScript 3 or ECMAScript 5 (a.k.a. ES3 and ES5).
This process of moving from a newer or "higher" version of ECMAScript down to an older or
"lower" one is sometimes called downleveling.

By default TypeScript targets ES3, an extremely old version of ECMAScript. We could have chosen
something a little bit more recent by using the target option. Running with --target es2015
changes TypeScript to target ECMAScript 2015, meaning code should be able to run wherever
ECMAScript 2015 is supported. So running tsc --target es2015 hello.ts gives us the
following output:
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 "Nay, nay!" said Blanche Delaware. "I have said nothing in their
favor. What makes you believe I admire them more than yourself?"

"Simply because every body of taste must esteem them highly,"

replied Burrel; "and women who do esteem them will always esteem
more than men can do. A woman's heart and mind, Miss Delaware,
by the comparative freshness which it retains more or less through
life, can appreciate the gentle, the sweet, and the simple, better
than a man's; and thus, while the mightier and more majestic
beauties of Wordsworth's muse affect your sex equally with ours, the
softer and finer shades of feeling--the touches of artless nature and
simplicity, which appear almost too weak for us, have all their full
effect on you."

"But if you own that, and feel that," said Blanche Delaware, "why
can not you admire the same beauties!"

"For this reason," replied Burrel--"man's mental taste, like his

corporeal power of tasting, gets corrupted, or rather paralyzed, in
his progress through the world, by the various stimulants he applies
to it. He drinks his bottle of strong and heady wine, which gradually
loses its effect, and he takes more, till at length nothing will satisfy
him but Cayenne pepper."

"But if he appreciates gentler pleasures," said Captain Delaware,

"he must be able in some degree to enjoy them."

"Of course," replied Burrel, "there are moments when the cool
and pleasant juice of a peach, or the simple refreshment of a glass
of lemonade will be delightful; and in such moments it is, that he
feels he has stimulated away a sense, and a delightful one. Thus
with poetry, and literature in general; the mind, by reading a great
many things it would be better without, loses its relish for every
thing that does not excite and heat the imagination, which is neither
more nor less than the mental palate; and though there are
moments when the heart, softened and at ease, finds joys in all the
sweet simplicity which would have charmed it forever in an
unsophisticated state, yet still it returns to Cayenne pepper, and only
remembers the other feelings, as of pleasures lost forever. With
regard to Wordsworth's poetry, perhaps no one ever did him more
injustice than I did once. With a very superficial knowledge of his
works, I fancied that I despised them all; and it was only from being
bored about them by his admirers, that I determined to read them
every line, that I might hate them with the more accuracy."

Blanche Delaware smiled, and her father spoke, perhaps, the

feelings of both. "We have found you out, Mr. Burrel," he said, "and
understand your turn for satirizing yourself."

"I am not doing so now, I can assure you," replied Burrel. "What I
state is exactly the fact. I sat down to read Wordsworth's works with
a determination to dislike them, and I succeeded in one or two
poems, which have been cried up to the skies; but, as I went on, I
found so often a majestic spirit of poetical philosophy, clothing itself
in the full sublime of simplicity, that I felt reproved and abashed, and
I read again with a better design. In doing so, though I still felt that
there was much amidst all the splendor that I could neither like nor
admire, yet I perceived how and why others might and would find
great beauties and infinite sweetness in that which palled upon my
taste; and I perceived also, that the fault lay in me far more than in
the poetry. The beauties I felt more than ever; and some of the
smaller pieces, I am convinced, will live for ages, with the works of
Shakspeare and Milton."

"They will, indeed," said Sir Sidney Delaware, "as long as there is
a taste in man. Nevertheless, the poet--who is, perhaps, as great a
philosopher, too, as ever lived--has sacrificed, like many
philosophers, an immense gift of genius to a false hypothesis in
regard to his art, and has, consequently, systematically poured forth
more trash than perhaps any man living. His poems, collected,
always put me in mind of an account I have somewhere read of the
diamond mines of Golconda, where inestimable jewels are found
mingled with masses of soft mud. But you have long done breakfast,
Mr. Burrel. Come, Blanche, I am going to take Mr. Burrel to the
terrace, and descant most dully on all the antiquities of the house.
Let us have your company, my love; for we shall meet with so many
old things, it may be as well to have something young to relieve
them!"

It required but a short space of time to array Blanche Delaware

for the walk round the terrace that her father proposed. In less than
a minute she came down in the same identical cottage bonnet--the
ugliest of all things--in which Burrel had first beheld her when with
her brother; but, strange to say, although on that occasion he had
only thought her a pretty country girl, so changed were now all his
feelings--so many beauties had he marked which then lay hid, that,
as she descended with a smiling and happy face to join them at the
door of the hall, he thought her the loveliest creature that he had
ever beheld in any climate, or at any time.

The whole party sallied forth; and as people who like each other,
and whose ideas are not common-place, can make an agreeable
conversation out of any thing, the walk round the old house, and the
investigation of every little turn and corner of the building, passed
over most pleasantly to all, although Blanche and her brother knew
not only every stone in the edifice, but every word almost that could
be said upon them. They were accustomed, however, to look upon
their father with so much affection and reverence; and the
misfortunes under which he labored had mingled so much
tenderness with their love, that "an oft-told tale" from his lips lost its
tediousness, being listened to by the ears of deep regard. Burrel,
too, was all attention; and, while Sir Sidney Delaware descanted
learnedly on the buttery, and the wet and dry larder, and the prior's
parlor, and the scriptorium, and pointed out the obtuse Gothic
arches described from four centers, which characterize the
architecture of Henry VIII., he filled up all the pauses with some new
and original observation on the same theme; and though certainly
not so learned on the subject as Sir Sidney himself, yet he showed
that, at all events, he possessed sufficient information to feel an
interest therein, and to furnish easily the matter for more erudite
rejoinder.

By the time the examination of the house itself was over,

however, Sir Sidney Delaware felt fatigued. "I must leave Blanche
and William, Mr. Burrel," he said, "to show you some of the traces of
those antique times which we have just been talking of, that are
scattered through the park, particularly on the side farthest from the
town. I myself think them more interesting than the house itself, and
wish I could go with you; but I am somewhat tired, and must deny
myself the pleasure."

Burrel assured him that he would take nothing as a worse

compliment than his putting himself to any trouble about him; and,
perhaps not unwillingly, set out, accompanied only by Blanche and
her brother. It would have been as dangerous a walk as ever was
taken had he not been in love already. There was sunshine over all
the world, and the air was soft and calm. Their way led through the
deep high groves and wilder park scenery that lay at the back of the
mansion, now winding in among hills and dells covered with rich,
short grass, now wandering on by the bank of the stream, on whose
bosom the gay-coated kingfishers and the dark water-hens were
skimming and diving in unmolested security. In the open parts, the
old hawthorns perched themselves on the knolls, wreathing their
fantastic limbs in groups of two or three; and every now and then a
decaying oak of gigantic girth, but whose head had bowed to time,
shot out its long lateral branches across the water, over which it had
bent for a thousand years.

The whole party were of the class of people who have eyes--as
that delightful little book the Evenings at Home has it--and at
present, though there were busy thoughts in the bosoms, at least of
two of those present, yet perhaps they strove the more to turn their
conversation to external things, from the consciousness of the
feelings passing within. Those feelings, however, had their effect, as
they ever must have, even when the topics spoken of are the most
indifferent. They gave life, and spirit, and brightness to every thing.

Blanche Delaware, hanging on the arm of her brother, and

yielding to the influence of the smiles that were upon the face of
nature, gave full way to her thoughts of external things as they
arose; and, together with spirits bright and playful, but never what
may be called _high_--with an imagination warm and brilliant, never
wild--there shone out a heart, that Burrel saw was well fitted to
understand and to appreciate that fund of deeper feelings, that
spring of enthusiasm, tempered a little by judgment, and ennobled
by a high moral sense, which he concealed, perhaps weakly--from a
world that he despised.

He felt at every step that the moments near her were almost too
delightful; and, before he had got to the end of that walk, he had
reached the point where love begins to grow terrified at its own
intensity, lest the object should be lost on which the mighty stake of
happiness is cast forever.

Having proceeded thus far--which, by the way, is no small length;

for the great difficulty, as Burrel found it, was to place himself fairly
on a footing of friendship with Sir Sidney Delaware's family--we must
unwillingly abandon the expatiative; and, having more than enough
to do, leave the party on their walk, and turn to characters as
necessary, but less interesting.

CHAPTER IX.
 In the house of Lord Ashborough--which is situated in Grosvenor-
square, fronting the south--there is a large room, which in form
would be a parallelogram, did not one of the shorter sides--which,
being turned to the north, looks out upon the little rood of garden
attached to the dwelling--bow out into the form of a bay window.
The room is lofty, and, as near as possible, twenty-eight feet in
length by twenty-four in breadth. Book-cases, well stored with tomes
in lettered calf, cover the walls, and a carpet, in which the foot sinks,
is spread over the floor. Three large tables occupy different parts of
the room. Two covered with books and prints lie open to the world in
general, but the third, on which stand inkstands and implements for
writing, shows underneath, in the carved lines of the highly-polished
British oak, many a locked drawer. Each chair, so fashioned that
uneasy must be the back that would not there find rest, rolls
smoothly on noiseless casters, and the thick walls, the double doors,
and book-cases, all combine to prevent any sound from within being
caught by the most prying ear without, or any noise from without
being heard by those within, except when some devil of a cart runs
away in Duke-street, and goes clattering up that accursed back
street behind.

Such were the internal arrangements and appearance of the

library at Lord Ashborough's, on a morning in September of the
same year, one thousand eight hundred and something, of which we
have been hitherto speaking. The morning was fine and clear; and
the sun, who takes the liberty of looking into every place without
asking permission of any one, was shining strongly into the little
rood of garden behind the house. The languishing plants and shrubs
that had been stuffed into that small space, dusty and dry with the
progress of a hot summer, and speckled all over with small grains of
soot--the morning benediction showered down upon them from the
neighboring chimneys--no doubt wished that the sun would let them
alone; and, as through an open passage-door they caught a sight of
the conservatory filled with rich exotics, all watered and aired with
scrupulous care, one of the poor brown lilacs might be heard
grumbling to a stunted gray laburnum about the shameful partiality
of the English for foreigners and strangers.

About eleven o'clock Lord Ashborough himself entered the room;

and before any one else comes in to disturb us, we may as well sit
down and take a full-length picture of him. He was a man of about
fifty-nine or sixty, tall and well-proportioned, though somewhat thin.
His face was fine, but pale, and there was a great deal of intellect
expressed on his broad brow and forehead, which looked higher
than it really was, from being perfectly bald as far down as the
sutures of the temples. From that point, some thin dark hair, grizzled
with gray, spread down, and met his whiskers, which were of the
same hue, and cut square off, about the middle of his cheeks. His
eyes were dark blue and fine, but somewhat stern, if not fierce, and
in the space between his eyebrows there was a deep wrinkle, in
which a finger might have been laid without filling up the cavity; the
eyebrows themselves, though not very long, were overhanging; the
nose was well formed and straight, though a little too long perhaps;
but his mouth was beautifully shaped, and would have appeared the
best feature in his face, had he not frequently twisted it in a very
unbecoming manner, by gnawing his nether lip. His chin was round,
and rather prominent; and his hand small, delicate, and almost
feminine.

It is all nonsense that a man's dress signifies nothing. It is--if he

takes any pains about it; and if he takes none, it comes to the same
thing--it is the habitual expression of his mind or his mood; and in
the little shades of difference which may exist with the moat perfect
adherence to fashion, you will find a language much easier read
than any of those on the Rosetta stone. Lord Ashborough was
dressed more like a young than an old man, though without any
extravagance. His coat was of dark green, covering a double-
breasted waistcoat of some harmonizing color, while his long, thin,
rather tight-fitting trowsers, displayed a well-formed leg, and were
met by a neat, and highly-polished boot. Around his neck he wore a
black handkerchief, exposing the smallest possible particle of white
collar between his cheek and the silk; and on one of his fingers was
a single seal ring. Taking him altogether he was a very good-looking
man, rather like the late Mr. Canning, but with a much less noble
expression of countenance.

Walking forward to the table, which we have noted as being well

supplied with locks, Lord Ashborough opened one of the drawers,
and, having rang the bell, sat down and took out some papers. The
door opened; a servant appeared;--"Send to Mr. Tims!" said Lord
Ashborough, and the man glided out. After a short pause, another
person appeared, but of very different form and appearance from
the servant; and therefore we must look at him more closely. He was
a short, stout, bustling-looking little man, of about thirty-eight or
forty, perhaps more, habited in black, rather white at the seams and
edges. His countenance was originally full and broad; but the habit
of thrusting his nose through small and intricate affairs had
sharpened that feature considerably; and the small black eyes that
backed it, together with several red blotches, one of which had
settled itself for life upon the tip of the eminence, did not diminish
the prying and intrusive expression of his countenance. There was
impudence, too, and cunning written in very legible characters upon
his face; but we must leave the rest to show itself as we go on.

As Mr. Peter Tims, of Clement's Inn, attorney-at-law--for such was

the respectable individual of whom we now treat--entered the library
of Lord Ashborough, he turned round and carefully closed the
double-door, and then, with noiseless step, proceeded through the
room till he brought himself in face of his patron. He then made a
low bow--it would have been _Cow Tow_ if it had been desired--and
then advanced another step, and made another bow.

"Sit down, sit down, Mr. Tims!" said Lord Ashborough, without
raising his eyes, which were running over a paper he had taken from
the drawer. "Sit down, sit down, I say!"
 Mr. Tims did sit down, and then, drawing forth some papers from
a blue bag, which he held in his hand, he began quietly to put them
in order, while Lord Ashborough read on.

After a minute or two, however, his lordship ceased, saying, "Now,

Mr. Tims, have you brought the annuity deed?"

"Here it is, any lord," replied the lawyer "and I have examined it
again most carefully. There is not a chink for a fly to break through.
There is not a word about redemption from beginning to end. The
money must be paid for the term of your lordship's natural life."

Lord Ashborough paused, and gnawed his lip for a moment or

two. "Do you know, Mr. Tims," he said at length, "I have some idea
of permitting the redemption? I am afraid we have made a mistake
in refusing it."

Mr. Tims was never astonished at any thing that a great man--
_i.e_. a rich man--did or said, unless he perceived that it was
intended to astonish him, and then he was very much astonished
indeed, as in duty bound. It was wonderful, too, with what facility he
could agree in every thing a rich man said, and exclaim, "Very like
an ousel!" as dexterously as Polonius, or a sick-nurse, though he had
been declaring the same question "very like a whale!" the moment
before. Nor was he ever at a loss for reasons in support of the new
opinion implanted by his patrons. In short, he seemed to have in his
head, all ticketed and ready for use, a store of arguments, moral,
legal, and philosophical, in favor of every thing that could be done,
said, or thought, by the wealthy or the powerful. In the present
instance, he saw that Lord Ashborough put the matter as one not
quite decided in his own mind; but he saw also, that his mind had
such a leaning to the new view of the matter, as would make him
very much obliged to any one who would push it over to that side
altogether.
 "I think your lordship is quite right," replied Mr. Tims. "You had
every right to refuse to redeem if you thought fit; but, at the same
time, you can always permit the redemption if you like; and it might
indeed look more generous--though, as I said before, you had every
right to refuse. Yet perhaps, after all, my lord--"

"Tush! Do not after all me, sir," cried Lord Ashborough, with some
degree of impatience, which led Mr. Tims to suspect that there was
some latent motive for this change of opinion, which his lordship felt
a difficulty in explaining: and which he, Mr. Tims, resolved at a
proper time to extract by the most delicate process he could devise.
"The means, sir," added Lord Ashborough; "the means are the things
to be attended to, not the pitiful balancing of one perhaps against
another."

"Oh! my lord, the means are very easy," replied Tims, rubbing his
hands. "You have nothing to do but to send word down that your
lordship is ready to accept, and any one will advance the means to
Sir ----"

"Pshaw!" again interrupted Lord Ashborough. "You do not

understand me, and go blundering on;" and, rising from his chair,
the peer walked two or three times up and down the room, gnawing
his lip, and bending his eyes upon the ground. "There!" he cried at
length, speaking with abrupt rudeness. "There! The matter requires
consideration--take up your papers, sir, and begone! I will send for
you when I want you."

Mr. Tims ventured not a word, for he saw that his patron had
made himself angry with the attempt to arrange something in his
own mind which would not be arranged; and taking up his papers,
one by one, as slowly as he decently could, he deposited them in
their blue bag, and then stole quietly toward the door. Lord
Ashborough was still walking up and down, and he suffered him to
pass the inner door without taking any notice; but, as he was
pushing open the red baize door beyond, the nobleman's voice was
heard exclaiming, "Stay, stay! Mr. Tims, come here!" The lawyer
glided quietly back into the room, where Lord Ashborough was still
standing in the middle of the floor, gazing on the beautiful and
instructive spots on the Turkey carpet.. His reverie, however, was
over in a moment, and he again pointed to the chair which the
lawyer had before occupied, bidding him sit down, while he himself
took possession of the seat on the other side of the table; and,
leaning his elbow on the oak, and his cheek upon his hand, he went
on in the attitude and manner of one who is beginning a long
conversation. The commencement, however, was precisely similar to
the former one, which had proved so short. "Do you know, Mr.
Tims," he said, "I have some idea of permitting the redemption? I
am afraid we have made a mistake in refusing it;" but then he
added, a moment after--"for the particular purpose I propose."

Mr. Tims was as silent as a mouse, for he saw that he was near
dangerous ground; and, at that moment, six-and-eightpence would
hardly have induced him to say a word--at least if it went farther
than, "Exactly so, my lord!"

The matter was still a difficult one for Lord Ashborough to get
over; for it is wonderful how easily men can persuade themselves
that the evil they wish to commit is right; and yet how troublesome
they find even the attempt to persuade another that it is so,
although they know him to be as unscrupulous a personage as ever
lived or died unhung. Now Lord Ashborough himself had no very
high idea of the rigid morality of his friend Mr. Tims's principles, and
well knew that his interest would induce him to do any thing on
earth; and yet, strange to say, that though Lord Ashborough only
desired to indulge a gentlemanlike passion, which, under very slight
modifications, or rather disguises, is considered honorable and is
patronized by all sorts of people, yet he did not at all like to display,
even to the eyes of Mr. Tims, the real motive that was now
influencing him. As it was necessary, however, to do so to some one,
and he knew that he could not do so to any one whose virtue was
less ferocious than that of Mr. Tims, he drew his clenched fist, on
which his cheek was resting, half over his mouth, and went on.

"The fact is, you must know, Mr. Tims," he said, "this Sir Sidney
Delaware is my first cousin--but you knew that before. Well, we
were never very great friends, though he and my brother were; and
at college it used to be his pleasure to thwart many of my views and
purposes. There is not, perhaps, a prouder man living than he is,
and that intolerable pride, added to his insolent sarcasms, kept us
greatly asunder in our youth, and therefore you see he has really no
claim upon my friendship or affection in this business."

"None in the world! None in the world!" cried Tims. "Indeed, all I
wonder at is, that your lordship does not use the power you have to
annoy him!"

Mr. Tims harped aright, and it is inexpressible what a relief Lord

Ashborough felt--one of the proudest men in Europe, by the way--at
finding that the little, contemptible despised lawyer, whom he looked
upon, on ordinary occasions, as the the dust under his feet, had, in
the present instance, got the right end of a clew which he was
ashamed or afraid to unwind himself. Besides, the way he put it gave
Lord Ashborough an opportunity of _chucking_ fine and generous,
as the Westminster fellows have it; and he immediately replied--"No,
sir, no! I never had any wish to annoy him. My only wish has been to
lower that pride, which is ruinous to himself, and insulting to others;
and I should not have even pursued that wish so far, had it not been
that a circumstance happened which called us into immediate
collision."

On finding that simple personal hatred and revenge--feelings that

might have been stated in three words--were the real and sole
motives which Lord Ashborough found it so difficult to enunciate, Mr.
Tims chuckled--but mark me, I beg--it was not an open and
barefaced cachination--it was, on the contrary, one of those sweet
internal chuckles that gently shake the diaphragm and the parietes
of the abdomen, and cause even a gentle percussion of the ensiform
cartilage, without one muscle of the face vibrating in sympathy, or
the slightest spasm taking place in the trachea or epiglottis. There is
the anatomy of a suppressed chuckle for you! The discovery,
however, was of more service than in the simple production of such
agreeable phenomena. Mr. Tims, perceiving the motive of his patron,
perceived also the precise road on which he was to lead, and
instantly replied, "Whatever circumstance called your lordship into
competition with Sir Sidney Delaware, must of course have been
very advantageous to yourself, if you chose to put forth your full
powers. But that, let me be permitted to say, is what I should
suspect, from all that I have the honor of knowing of your lordship's
character, you would not do. For I am convinced you have already
shown more lenity than was very consistent with your own interest,
and perhaps more than was even beneficial to the object; but I
humbly crave your lordship's pardon for presuming to--"

Lord Ashborough waved his hand. "Not at all, Mr. Tims! Not at
all!" he said. "Your intentions, I know, are good. But hear me. We
came in collision concerning the lady whom he afterward married,
and made a well bred beggar of. He had known her, and, it seems,
obtained promises from her before I became acquainted: and
though a transitory fancy for her took place in my own bosom"--and
Lord Ashborough turned deadly pale--"yet of course, when I heard
of my cousin's arrangements with her, I withdrew my claims,
without, as you say, exerting power that I may flatter myself--"

He left the sentence unfinished, but he bowed his head proudly,

which finished it sufficiently; and Mr. Tims immediately chimed in,
"Oh, there can be no doubt--if your lordship had chosen--who the
deuce is Sir Sidney Delaware, compared--" &c., &c., &c., &c.

"Well, I forgot the matter entirely," continued Lord Ashborough, in

a frank and easy tone, for it is wonderful how the lawyer's little
insignificances helped him on. "Well, I forgot the matter entirely."
 "But you never married any one else," thought the lawyer, "and
you remember it now." All this was thought in the lowest possible
tone, so that Satan himself could hardly hear it--but Lord
Ashborough went on. "I never, indeed, remembered the business
more, till, on lending the money to his father, I found from a letter
which the late man let me see, that the present man had not
forgiven me some little progress I had made in the lady's affection.
He said--I recollect the words very well--he said, that he could have
borne his father borrowing the money at any rate of interest from
any person but myself, who had endeavored to supplant him--and all
the rest that you can imagine. Well, from that moment I determined
to bow that man's pride, for his own sake, as well as other people's.
I thought I had done so pretty well too; but, on my refusing to
suffer the redemption--which no one can doubt that I had a right to
do--he wrote me that letter; and his lordship threw across the table,
to his solicitor, the letter which he had taken out of the drawer, just
as the other entered. It was in the form of a note, and couched in
the following terms:--

"Sir Sidney Delaware acknowledges the receipt of Lord

Ashborough's letter, formally declining to accept the offer he made
to redeem the annuity chargeable upon the estate of Emberton. The
motives, excuses, or apologies--whichever Lord Ashborough chooses
to designate the sentences that conclude his letter--were totally
unnecessary, as Sir Sidney Delaware was too well acquainted with
Lord Ashborough, in days of old, not to appreciate fully the principles
on which he acts at present.

"Emberton Park, 1st September, 18--."

"Infamous! brutal! heinous!" cried Mr. Tims. "What does your
lordship intend to do? I hope you will, without scruple, punish this
man as he deserves. I trust that, for his own sake, you will make
him feel that such ungrateful and malignant letters as that, are not
to be written with impunity--ungrateful I may well call them! for
what cause could your lordship have to write to him at all except to
soften the disappointment you conceived he would feel?"

"You say very true, Mr. Tims," replied Lord Ashborough, with a
benign smile. "You say very true, indeed; and I do think myself, in
justice to society, bound to correct such insolence, though, perhaps,
I may not be inclined to carry the chastisement quite so far as
yourself."

"Nothing could be too severe for such a man!" cried Mr. Tims,
resolved to give his lordship space enough to manœuvre in.
"Nothing could be too severe!"

"Nay, nay, that is saying too much," said Lord Ashborough. "We
will neither hang him, Mr. Tims, nor burn him in the hand, if you
please," and he smiled again at his own moderation.

"A small touch of imprisonment, however, would do him a world

of good," said Mr. Tims, feeling his ground--Lord Ashborough smiled
benignly a third time. "But the mischief is," continued the lawyer, "he
pays the annuity so regularly that it would be difficult to catch him."

"That is the reason why I say we have done wrong in refusing to

allow the redemption," rejoined the peer. "Do you not think, Mr.
Tims, some accident might occur to stop the money which he was
about to borrow for the purpose of redeeming and if we could but
get him to give bills payable at a certain day, we might have him
arrested, in default?"

The lawyer shook his head. "I am afraid, my lord, if you had
permitted the redemption, the money would have been ready to the
minute," he said. "My uncle, I hear, was to have raised it for him;
and, as he was to have had a good commission, it would have been
prepared to the tick of the clock."
 "And was your uncle to have lent the money himself, sir?"
demanded Lord Ashborough, with a mysterious smile of scorn. "Did
your uncle propose to give the money out of his own strongbox?"

"No, my lord, no!" replied Tims, eagerly; "no, no! He would not do
that without much higher interest than he was likely to have got.
Had he been the person, of course your lordship might have
commanded him; but it was to be raised from some gentleman
connected with Messrs. Steelyard and Wilkinson--a very respectable
law house, indeed!"

"Some gentleman connected with Messrs. Steelyard and

Wilkinson!" repeated Lord Ashborough, curling his haughty lip; "and
who do you suppose that gentleman is, but my own nephew, Harry
Beauchamp?"

The lawyer started off his chair with unaffected astonishment, the
expression of which was, however, instantly mastered, and down he
sat again, pondering, as fast as he could, the probable results that
were to be obtained from this very unexpected discovery. Some
results he certainly saw Lord Ashborough was prepared to deduce;
and he knew that his only plan was to wait the development thereof,
assisting as much as in him lay, the parturition of his patron's
designs. But Lord Ashborough having spoken thus far, found very
little difficulty in proceeding.

"The simple fact is this, Mr. Tims," he said; "Harry Beauchamp,

full of all the wild enthusiasm--which would have ruined his father, if
we had not got him that governorship in which he died--to my
certain knowledge has gone down to Emberton, with the full
determination of assisting these people, of whom his father was so
fond. I have reason to think even, that the coming up of that young
man, the son, was at Henry's instigation, although they affected not
to know each other, and I am told carried their dissimulation so far
as to pass each other in the hall as strangers. At all events, they
went down together in a stage-coach, and are now, beyond all
doubt, laying out their plans for frustrating all my purposes."

"Shameful, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Tims.

"On Harry's part," replied Lord Ashborough, affecting a tone of

candor and moderation; "on Harry's part it is but a piece of boyish
enthusiasm--a touch of his father's folly. I love the boy, who, as you
know, will succeed me--when it pleases Heaven," he added, piously,-
-"to remove me from this life. I love the boy, and I do not choose to
see him spend his splendid fortune, which will make a noble addition
to the family estates, upon a set of mean and designing beggars;
and I wish at once to punish them for their low and cunning
schemes, and to save my nephew from their snares. Can we not, Mr.
Tims, do you think, hit upon some plan by which this may be
effected?"

"Why, my lord," replied Mr. Tims, hesitating slightly, for he was

totally unprepared either for the intelligence he had received, or the
demand that followed it; "why, my lord, your lordship's views are as
kind and generous as usual; and doubtless--doubtless we may soon
devise some means by which your lordship's nephew may be
extricated from this little entanglement--but it will, of course, require
thought--though perhaps your lordship's clear and perspicuous mind
may have already devised some project. Indeed, I can not doubt it,"
he added, seeing a slight but well satisfied smile cross the features
of the noble earl. "Your lordship has so much of what Burke used to
call creative talent, that I doubt not you have already discovered the
fitting means, and only require an agent in your most devoted
servant."

"Something more, Mr. Tims, something more than a mere

servant," replied Lord Ashborough. "I require your legal advice. We
must proceed cautiously, and not suffer either zealous indignation,
or regard for my nephew, to lead us into any thing that is not quite
lawful. A slight scheme of the matter may, indeed, have suggested
itself to my mind, but I want you to consider it well, and legalize it
for me, as well as some of the details. Could we not, I say--could we
not--it is but a supposition, you know, sir--could we not give notice
to this Sir Sidney Delaware, that we are willing to permit the
redemption; and even to give him time to pay the money, canceling,
in the mean time, the annuity deed--"

"Not before you have got the amount!" exclaimed the lawyer, in
unutterable astonishment.

"Yes, sir, before I have got the amount," replied Lord Ashborough,
phlegmatically, "but not before I have got bills or notes of hand,
payable within a certain time, and with an expressed stipulation, that
unless those are duly paid, the annuity itself holds in full force."

"Ay; but if they be paid, my lord," cried Mr. Tims, "the annuity is
at an end; and then where is your lordship?"

"But can not we find means to stop their being paid, Mr. Tims?"
said Lord Ashborough, fixing his eyes steadily upon the lawyer. "In
all the intricate chambers of your brain, I say, is there no effectual
way you can discover to stop the supplies upon which this Delaware
may have been led to reckon, and render him unable to pay the sum
on the day his bills fall due? Remember, sir, your uncle is the agent,
as I am led to believe, between this person and my nephew. Harry
Beauchamp, forsooth, has too fine notions of delicacy to offer the
money in his own person; but he is the man from whom the money
is to come, and it has been for some weeks lodged in the hands of
Steelyard and Wilkinson, his solicitors, awaiting the result--that is to
say, the whole of it except ten thousand pounds in my hands, which
I have promised to sell out for him to-morrow, and pay into their
office. Are there no means, sir, for stopping the money?"

"Plenty, plenty, my lord!" replied the lawyer. "The only difficulty

will be the choice of them. But, first, can not your lordship refuse to
pay the ten thousand?"
 "That will not do," answered the peer. "I know Harry well; and his
first act would be to sell out the necessary sum to supply the
deficiency. You must devise something else."

"Let us make the bills payable at Emberton, my lord," said the

attorney; "at the house of my uncle. Mr. Beauchamp must then
either come to town for the money, or send some one to receive it;
and in either case it may be staid."

"How so?" demanded Lord Ashborough. "If he come, the matter

is hopeless. He has sold out of the army, too; so there is no chance
of his being called away there."

"Ay, but there is a little process at law going on against him, my

lord," replied the attorney, "of which he knows nothing as yet. Some
time ago, he threw the valet he had then down stairs, head
foremost, for seducing the daughter of his landlady. The fellow has
since prosecuted him for assault, and served the process upon me,
whom he employed in the affair. I am not supposed to know where
he is, so that the matter may be easily suffered to go by default;
and, one way or another, we can contrive to get him arrested for a
day or two, no doubt--especially as it is all for his own good and
salvation, I may call it."

"Certainly, certainly!" answered Lord Ashborough. "I should feel

no scruple in doing so; for no one could doubt that I am actuated
alone by the desire of keeping him from injuring himself. But
suppose he sends, Mr. Tims?"

"Why, that were a great deal better still," said the lawyer. "The
only person he could send would be his servant, Harding, who owes
me the place; and who, between you and I, my lord, might find it
difficult to keep me from transporting him to Botany Bay, if I chose
it. He would doubtless be easily prevailed upon to stop the money
for a time, or altogether, if it could be shown him that he could get
clear off, and the matter would be settled forever."
 There was a tone of familiarity growing upon the lawyer, as a
natural consequence of the edifying communion which he was
holding with his patron, that rather displeased and alarmed Lord
Ashborough, and he answered quickly, "You forget yourself, sir! Do
you suppose that I would instigate my nephew's servant to rob his
master?"

Mr. Peter Tims had perhaps forgot himself for the moment; but he
was one of those men that never forget themselves long; and, as
crouching was as natural to him as to a spaniel, he was instantly
again as full of humility and submission as he had been, previously
to the exposé which had morally sunk Lord Ashborough to a level
with Mr. Tims. "No, my lord, no!" he exclaimed eagerly; "far be it
from me to dream for one moment that your lordship would form
such an idea. All I meant was, that this servant might easily be
induced to delay the delivery of the money, on one pretext or
another, till it be too late; and if he abscond--which perchance he
might do, for his notions concerning property, either real or personal,
are not very clearly defined--your lordship could easily intend to
make it good to Mr. Beauchamp."

"I do not know what you propose that I should easily _intend_,
Mr. Tims," replied Lord Ashborough; "but I know that it would not
sound particularly well if this man were to abscond with the money,
and there were found upon his person any authorization from me to
delay discharging his trust to his master."

"Oh, my lord, that difficulty would be easily removed," answered

Mr. Tims. "The law is very careful not to impute evil motives where
good ones can be made apparent. It will be easy to write a letter to
this man--what one may call a fishing letter--to see whether he will
do what we wish, but stating precisely that your lordship's sole
purpose and view is to save your nephew from squandering his
fortune in a weak and unprofitable manner. We can keep a copy,
properly authenticated; then, should he abscond, and be caught
with the letter on him, your lordship will be cleared; while if, on
being taken, he attempt to justify himself at your lordship's expense,
the authenticated copy will clear you still."

"That is not a bad plan," said Lord Ashborough, musing. "But

what if he draw for the money through your uncle, Mr. Tims? Do you
think the old man could be induced to detain the money, or to deny
its arrival for a day or two?"

"Why, I fear not, my lord," answered the other, shaking his head;
"I fear not--he was five-and-thirty years a lawyer, my lord, and he is
devilish cautious. But I will tell you what I can do. I can direct him to
address all his letters, on London business, under cover to your
lordship, which will save postage--a great thing in his opinion--and,
as he holds a small share of my business still, I can open all the
answers. So that we will manage it some way."

Lord Ashborough paused and mused for several minutes, for

though his mind was comparatively at ease in having found his
lawyer so eager and zealous in his co-operation, yet a certain
consciousness of the many little lets and hindrances that occur in the
execution of the best laid schemes, made him still thoughtful and
apprehensive. Did you ever knit a stocking? No! nor I either--nor
Lord Ashborough, I dare say, either. Yet we all know, that in the
thousand and one stitches of which it is composed, if a single one be
missed, down goes the whole concatenation of loops, and the
matter is just where it began, only with a raveled thread about your
fingers and thumbs, which is neither pleasant nor tidy. This
consideration had some weight with the earl; so, after thinking
deeply for several minutes, he rejoined--"The matter seems clear
enough, Mr. Tims, but I will put it to yourself whether you can carry
it through successfully or not--Hear me to an end, sir--I will on no
account agree to the redemption of the annuity, if you are not
certain of being able to bring about that which we propose. So, do
not undertake it unless you can do so. If you do undertake it, the
odds stand thus--You have five hundred pounds in addition to your
fees if you be successful; but if you fail, you lose my agency forever."
 "My lord," replied Tims, who was not a man to suppose that
cunning could ever fail, "I will undertake the business and the risk.
But, of course, your lordship must give me all your excellent advice
and your powerful assistance. In the first place, you must allow me
to bid my uncle send all his letters, and direct all the answers to be
sent under cover to your lordship, and, in the next place, you must
allow me to write immediately to Harding in your name."

"Not without letting me see the letter!" exclaimed Lord

Ashborough. "But that, of course; and, if you succeed, the five
hundred pounds are yours."

"Your lordship is ever generous and kind," replied Peter Tims;

"and I will undertake to carry the matter through; but only"--and Mr.
Tims was honest for once in his life, from the fear of after
consequences--"but only I am afraid your lordship will not find the
result put this Sir Sidney Delaware so completely is your power as
you think."

"How so?" demanded Lord Ashborough, turning upon him almost

fiercely. "How so, sir? How so?"

"Why, my lord," replied Mr. Tims, in a low and humble tone, "even
suppose he is arrested, depend upon it, he will very easily find some
one to lend him the money on the Emberton estates, to take up the
bills he has given."

The earl's eye flashed, and the dark and bitter spirit in his heart
broke forth for the first time unrestrained. "Let me but have him in
prison!" he exclaimed; "let me but have him once in prison, and I
will so complicate my claims upon his pitiful inheritance, and so
wring his proud heart with degradations, that the beggar who
robbed me of my bride shall die as he has lived, in poverty and
disappointment!" and in the vehemence with which the long-
suppressed passion burst forth, he struck his hand upon the table,
till the ink-glasses danced in their stand.
 Mr. Tims could understand envy, hatred, and malice, and all
uncharitableness; but he was cowed by such vehemence as that into
which the bare thought of seeing his detested rival in prison had
betrayed his noble patron. Feeling, too, that he himself was not at all
the sort of spirit to rule the whirlwind and direct the storm, he said a
few quiet words about preparing every thing, and waiting on his
lordship the next morning, and slunk away without more ado.

CHAPTER X.

This chapter shall be, I think, what that delightful wight,

Washington Irving, would call a Salmagundi, or, as it should be,
perhaps, a _Salmi à la Gondi_; but, having mentioned that name,
Irving, I dedicate this book to you. It is long since we first met--long
since we last parted--and it may be long, long, ere we meet again.
Nevertheless, Heaven speed you, wherever you are, and send you
forward on your voyage, with a calm sea and a swelling sail! In all
the many that I have known, and among the few that I have loved
and esteemed, there is not now a living man that can compete with
you in that delightful conversation where the heart pours forth its
tide, and where fancy and feeling mingle together, and flow on in
one ever sparkling stream. The dim Atlantic--whose very name
sounds like that of eternity--may roll between us till death close the
eyes of one or the other; but till the things of this world pass away,
you shall not be forgotten.

Although we have now brought up the events in London nearly to

the same point as the events in the country, we must still leave
Henry Burrel strolling on through Emberton Park beside Blanche
Delaware, while we turn for a moment to his silent servant, who
having, on the same morning, walked with his usual slow and quiet
step to the post-office, brought home, and deposited upon his
master's table, two or three letters, after first gleaning every
possible information that their outside or their inside could furnish.
He then proceeded to inspect the contents of another epistle, which
bore his own name and superscription. The words therein written
had a considerable effect upon him, causing more twitches and
contortions of the muscles of his countenance than was usually
visible upon that still and patient piece of furniture. The first
expression was certainly full of pleasure; but that soon relapsed into
deep thought, and then a grave shake of the head, and close setting
of the lower jaw, might be supposed to argue a negative
determination. "No, no, Mr. Tims," he muttered, "that won't do! If
one could make sure of getting clear off--well and good. But first,
there is the chance of my not being sent for the money--then you
would take good care to have me closely watched; and then, again,
I do not know whether the chance here at Emberton may not be
worth ten of the other--and I may come in for my share of the other
too. No, no, Mr. Tims, it won't do!--so I will come the conscientious
upon you." And down he sat to indite an epistle to Mr. Peter Tims,
the agent of Lord Ashborough. It was written in one of those fair,
easy, but vacillating, running-hands, which bespeak a peculiar and
inherent gift or talent for committing forgery; and was to the
following effect:--

"Emberton, September, 18-

-

"Sir--Your honored letter was duly received this morning; and I

hasten to reply, as in duty bound. I am very sure that such
honorable gentlemen as my lord the earl and yourself would not
undertake any thing but upon good and reasonable grounds; but,
hoping that you will pardon my boldness in saying so much, yet I
can not imagine that I have any other than a straight forward duty
to perform--namely, when my master sends me for any sum of