"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 dust under his feet, had, in the present instance, got the right end of a clue, that 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 cachinnation--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 honour 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"----