Rumpole of the Bailey

"Soapy" Sam Ballard:
Rumpole as a client! God give me strength!

Hilda Rumpole:
Oh, don't worry, Sam. If God doesn't, I certainly will.

Horace Rumpole:
She who must be obeyed!

Horace Rumpole:
An Englishman's gin bottle is his castle!

Horace Rumpole:
[groaning to himself] Ohhh! His honour Judge Gerald Graves! Never a friend to Rumpole. He's looking at me now as though I was a porridge saucepan that hasn't washed up properly. No doubt he lives on a diet of organic bran, iced water, and colonic irrigation.

Horace Rumpole:
[talking about Hilda's cousin] He's got as many jokes in him as the Dow-Jones Average.

Elizabeth 'Mizz Liz' Probert:
She's gone off with another man?

Horace Rumpole:
That's about the size of it.

Elizabeth 'Mizz Liz' Probert:
[being very sympathetic] But Rumpole, why?

Horace Rumpole:
Because he is rich enough to be able to afford very small portions of food.

Jean Pierre O'Higgins:
What do you say then, Mr. Horace Rumpole? Will you take me on?

Horace Rumpole:
Well, I'll have to think about that.

Jean Pierre O'Higgins:
Be honest. Is it my personality that makes you hesitate? Do you find me objectionable, Mr. Rumpole?

Horace Rumpole:
Mr. O'Higgins, I find your restaurant pretentious and your portions skimpy. Your customers regale themselves in a dim religious atmosphere more fitting to evensong than a good night out. I find you an opinionated and self-satisfied bully. However, unlike you, I am on hire to even the most unattractive customer.

Horace Rumpole:
I often think that knowledge of the law is a bit of a handicap to a barrister.

[Erskine-Brown's dinner guest, Tricia, starts screaming in panic and stands on her chair]

Horace Rumpole:
[to Jean-Pierre O'Higgins, the restaurant owner] I say, old darling, they have a live mouse on that table over there. Is that your specialit? de la maison?

Hilda Rumpole:
[As Rumpole enters their home] Is that you, Rumpole?

Horace Rumpole:
[Sarcastically] No, it's the Lord High Chancellor popped in to read the gas meter.

Horace Rumpole:
[To himself] A fair judge, an upright judge - always a terrible danger to the defense!

Horace Rumpole:
[In an impassioned defense of Uncle Tom] It's like great poetry that's uinnecessary. You can't eat it. It doesn't make you money. I suppose, there are some people, Ballard, who can get through life like you - without Wordsworth's sonnet "On Westminster Bridge." What we're discussing here is the quality of life. Uncle Tom adds an imaginative tone to what would otherwise be a dusty, dreary little clerks' office full of barristers, biscuits, and briefs.

Professor Julius Kramer:
The learned judge seemed to regard you as a senior citizen.

Horace Rumpole:
I'm not all that senior,

Horace Rumpole:
[as an aside] and he's not all that learned.

Mr. Glassworth:
[referring to life in prison] Do they still have slopping out?

Horace Rumpole:
Yes, I'm afraid they do.

Mr. Glassworth:
I spent my life in the acquisition of beautiful objects.

Horace Rumpole:
[sarcastically to his instructing solicitor] I suppose that's what the three years were for!

Mr. Glassworth:
Slopping out! How could I live through it? And the sickening sexual advances of beefy warders.

Horace Rumpole:
[muttering] Oh, I wouldn't count on that, old darling.

Mr. Glassworth:
What did you say?

Horace Rumpole:
Oh, nothing.

Hilda Rumpole:
You don't want to die in harness, do you? Poor old Daddy died in harness, didn't he?

Horace Rumpole:
[sarcastically] Oh, really? I thought he died in the Tunbridge General Hospital.

Horace Rumpole:
Birth and death! They silence us all in the end!

Horace Rumpole:
I've always said that exercise is a short cut to the cemetery.

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard Q.C.:
I believe it is the first time in our long history, Rumpole, that these chambers have contained... a chancellor!

[Rumpole is so shocked, he sits down]

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard Q.C.:
Yes, Rumpole, unworthy as I am.

Horace Rumpole:
[regaining his composure] Well, that's the understatement of the year!

Horace Rumpole:
I happen to have a good deal of faith.

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard Q.C.:
Yes, in what precisely?

Horace Rumpole:
The health-giving qualities of claret, of course, the presumption of innocence, and not having to clock into chambers in the morning.

Hilda Rumpole:
[as Rumpole enters the house] Is that you, Rumpole?

Horace Rumpole:
No, it's the village blacksmith come to crown you Queen of the May!

Hilda Rumpole:
[referring to her nephew] He's quite a big shot in the cathedral. They've made him a canon.

Horace Rumpole:
Is that a funny, Hilda?

Canon Timothy Donkin:
Well, I'm a married man, Uncle Horace.

Horace Rumpole:
Well, of course, it makes it easier to commit adultery if you're married, doesn't it? [laughs]

Horace Rumpole:
There is not a court in Heaven or Earth, Tim, where Horace Rumpole is not ready and willing to appear. On the Day of Judgment I shall probably be up on my hind legs putting a few impertinent questions to the prosecution.

Horace Rumpole:
The food here is like my jokes - not always in the best of taste.

[Frank Marlin is telling Rumpole the names of the canon's Six Accusers who want to unfrock him. He points out a woman with a very severe expression]

Frank Marlin:
Mrs Elphick, Chairman of the Bench.

Horace Rumpole:
She looks like a warm advocate for hanging for an un-renewed dog-licence.

Bobby Dogherty:
He says you'll find lime juice and soda has a potent little kick in it.

Horace Rumpole:
[laconically] The kick of a mouse in carpet slippers, I should imagine.

Horace Rumpole:
[describing his marriage] I had no choice in the matter at all. I was called up to marriage like military service. Her father was head of chambers. He gave me to understand what was expected of me.

Hilda Rumpole:
I want you to pull up your socks. That's what I want, and if you don't... well... it's quite likely you might spend your old age alone!

Horace Rumpole:
[mumbling to himself] Promises, promises.

Hilda Rumpole:
What did you say?

Horace Rumpole:
'Miss you, miss you, Hilda,' I said.

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard, Q.C.:
His marriage is on the rocks, Rumpole, and when a fellow's marriage is on the rocks, he can't always be trusted with a cheque.

Claude Erskine-Brown:
Indeed.

Horace Rumpole:
Oh, really? How's your marriage, Ballard?

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard, Q.C.:
Well, you know perfectly well, Rumpole, I'm a bachelor.

Horace Rumpole:
Then aren't you in the position of a lifelong vegetarian giving us your recipe for steak and kidney pie?

Horace Rumpole:
My lord, may I make a suggestion?

Judge Gerald Graves:
What is it?

Horace Rumpole:
May I suggest that your lordship sits quietly and allows me to develop the defense.

Judge Gerald Graves:
Mr. Rumpole, may I ask where these questions are leading?

Horace Rumpole:
I hope, my lord, to the truth.

[Hector Vellacott tells Rumpole that Sir Christopher Japhet has disappeared, the day after Rumpole accused him in court of being responsible for the insider dealing]

Hector Vellacott Q.C.:
The judge is not going to like it.

Horace Rumpole:
Oh don't worry about him, old darling. The shock will probably bring him back to life.

Hilda Rumpole:
Is that you Rumpole?

Horace Rumpole:
No, it's the man come to tune the harp.

[Rumpole discusses the Timsons, whom he is defending, with Liz Probert]

Horace Rumpole:
The Timsons would hate to be called working people. They are entirely middle-class villains. And they are very conservative too. They live according to strict monetarist principles and the free-market economy. And they're dead against the closed shop - they believe shops should be open all hours of the night... preferably with a jemmy!

Horace Rumpole:
My young nephew, Sandy, is in Germany. He's having a bit of trouble with murder - he's got a murder in his regiment.

Horace Rumpole:
Murder?

Major Johnnie Pageant:
A young trooper - he's got a spot of bother.

Horace Rumpole:
Murder in his regiment, you say? Who's this chap supposed to have murdered?

Major Johnnie Pageant:
His troop sergeant, apparently.

Horace Rumpole:
[jokingly] Murdered his sergeant? Justifiable homicide, surely!

[Rumpole has been admiring the regimental trophies for past battles that they have won, while discussing the murder that Trroper Boyne is charged with]

Lt. Col. Hugo Undershaft:
It can't be said that we had a murderer in our ranks, can it?

Horace Rumpole:
Oh certainly not. Not after you've killed all those other people!

[stunned silence, followed by nervous laughter]

Horace Rumpole:
[entering Pomeroy's and seeing a pensive Erskine-Brown] Oh, what can ail thee, Erskine-Brown, alone and palely loitering?

Claude Erskine-Brown:
[depressed] Mmm. It's my practice, Rumpole.

Horace Rumpole:
[clearly enjoying the pun] Oh, still practicing? I thought you might have got the hang of it by now.

Horace Rumpole:
[giving back the claret when he realizes he can get champagne] Jack, this horse was unfit for work.

Horace Rumpole:
I never plead guilty!

Morry Machin:
I have admired you often, sir, from afar. They say you're a fighter, Mr. Rumpole. They say you're a terrier, sir, after the legal rabbit.

Horace Rumpole:
A barrister, my dear sir, is a taxi plying for hire. That is the fine tradition of our trade.

Horace Rumpole:
[startled at seeing an empty breakfast table] There are no bacon and eggs, Hilda!

Hilda Rumpole:
Claude doesn't like a cooked breakfast, Rumpole, but there's plenty of muesli. I got it for him specially.

Horace Rumpole:
[looking in horror at the jar of muesli] What's that? Sawdust and bird droppings?

Morry Machin:
Have you been drinking at all this evening?

Horace Rumpole:
[slightly tipsy] Of course, I've been drinking at all. You don't think I come out with these blinding flashes of deduction when I'm completely sober, do you?

[Morry Machin refuses to print a clarification about the photograph of Claude Erskine-Brown outside the sex club]

Horace Rumpole:
Mr Machin, I told you that it was a legal rule that a British barrister is in duty bound to take on any client, however repellent.

Morry Machin:
I do remember you saying something of the sort.

Horace Rumpole:
But you are stretching my duty to the furthest limit of human endurance.

[Rumpole is cross-examining Amelia Nettleship in court]

Horace Rumpole:
May I read a short extract from a so-called historical novel entitled "Lord Stingo's Fancy".

Judge Teasdale:
Ah yes, isn't that the one that ends happily?

Horace Rumpole:
Happily *all* Miss Nettleship's novels end, my Lord - eventually.

[laughter from the jury]

[Claude Erskine-Brown and Ted Sleaman meet for the first time in years]

Claude Erskine-Brown:
"Slimey" Sleaman?

Ted Sleaman:
"Collywobbles" Erskine-Brown.

Claude Erskine-Brown:
We were at school together.

Horace Rumpole:
[drily] Yes, obviously.

Ted Sleaman:
Look, would you care to join my editor. Glass of Bolly.

Claude Erskine-Brown:
What?

Ted Sleaman:
Bollinger.

Claude Erskine-Brown:
Thank you Slimey, I'd love to.

Ted Sleaman:
Well come on, then.

Claude Erskine-Brown:
[to Erskine-Brown] Golly, Colly. Bolly.

Dave Anstey:
It's cast-iron, my alibi.

Horace Rumpole:
I'm not altogether sure I like cast-iron alibis. They're the sort that sink quickest - to the bottom of the sea.

Marigold Featherstone:
Mr. Rumpole, do you handle divorce?

Horace Rumpole:
Aah!... Only rarely and then with a strong pair of tongs!

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard Q.C.:
Rumpole, there is something in this room that makes me feel uneasy.

Horace Rumpole:
Yes I know - but perhaps you'll be going in a minute.

Charlie Wisbeach:
Ballard asked me in for a chat. It seems there may be a vacancy in your chambers.

Horace Rumpole:
[tapping his head to indicate that he thinks Ballard is an idiot] Where Ballard is, there is *always* a vacancy.

Horace Rumpole:
[brandishing his umbrella on the subject of retirement] Rumpole shall never sheath his sword.

Horace Rumpole:
[suddenly noticing his champagne glass is empty] Hello! Tide's gone out. Excuse me.

Horace Rumpole:
All of you seem to think that, like Sigmund Freud, that... sex is the explanation for everything, but sometimes it's... it's... it's something else entirely.

Lord Richard Sackbut:
It's entirely a family matter.

Horace Rumpole:
I'm used to hearing about family matters. Murders are family matters - 9 times out of 10.

Captain Rex Parkin:
I served my country as best I could given my medical condition.

Horace Rumpole:
[looking at his records] Ah, yes, flat feet! Hmmm, don't worry. I was on the RAF ground staff. We both avoided the temptation of heroism.

Horace Rumpole:
I defend murderers - doesn't mean I approve of murder.

Horace Rumpole:
We can hardly hope for a trial in the spirit of Voltaire.

Horace Rumpole:
[Grabbing a hammer as he tries to put up a bookshelf] Let's try the Irish screwdriver! [bangs in the screw with it] Ha, ha! There you look at that! Steady as a rock, hmm? Most people would have got a man in to do a simple job like that!

Guthrie Featherstone, QC MP:
You're working?

Horace Rumpole:
[looking up from his desk] No, I'm standing on my head and playing the bagpipes!

[Harold Brittling, an artist, is looking at a painting on the Rumpoles' living room wall]

Harold Brittling:
What's this objet d'art?

Hilda Rumpole:
[proudly] Oh that's a watercolour of Lamorna Cove, done by my old school friend Dodo MacIntosh. She lives in the West Country and she has sent in to the Royal Academy on more than one occasion. Do you like it, Mr...

Harold Brittling:
Harold. The point is, Hilda, do *you* like it?

Hilda Rumpole:
Oh I think it's rather fine. Beautiful, in fact. The way that Dodo has caught the shadow on those rocks.

Harold Brittling:
If you think it's fine and beautiful, Hilda, then that's what it is to you.

Harold Brittling:
[turning to Horace] To her it's worth a fortune. The fact that, to me, it looks rather like a blob of budgerigar's vomit is neither here nor there. You pay for what *you* think is beautiful.

Customs Officer:
Your clothing?

Horace Rumpole:
No, my mosquito net!

Horace Rumpole:
You know, it's a most extraordinary thing, my Learned Friend. We go through all the mumbo-jumbo, we put on the wig, and the gown, we mutter the ritual prayers, "If your Lordship pleases", "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury", abracadabra, fee fie foe bloody fum. And just when everybody thinks you're going to produce the most ludicrously fake piece of cheesecloth ectoplasm, there it is, clear as a bell! The truth! Don't you find it? You know, it's bloody scary sometimes, ha ha, but there it is, the truth. Naked and embarrassing!

Horace Rumpole:
In November an old man's fancy likely turns to thoughts of indecent assault.

Horace Rumpole:
Murder is nothing more than common assault... with unfortunate consequences.

Mrs. Delgado:
Mr. Rumpole, I'm only the boy's mother.

Horace Rumpole:
[sarcastically] Oh, don't underestimate yourself, madam. You have bred three sons who have given a great deal of employment to the legal profession.

Horace Rumpole:
All we have is a large soak patch in the crook of the left arm.

Mr. Thistleton:
Yes.

Horace Rumpole:
Totally consistent with my client merely having supported the deceased's head as he lay bleeding in his arms.

Mr. Thistleton:
[after pausing, hesitantly] Not inconsistent.

Horace Rumpole:
[exasperated] Not inconsistent! Mr. Thistleton, doesn't "not inconsistent" when translated into plain English mean "consistent"?

Mr. Thistleton:
Yes, it does.

Horace Rumpole:
Go into court on rape - it's like stepping into a refrigerator with the light off. All the men are thinking of their daughters; all the women are sitting with their legs jammed together!

Horace Rumpole:
It must have come as a huge relief for those who heard Rumpole had kicked the bucket, to hear he had just turned a little pale.

Horace Rumpole:
That's why I asked you to give Miss Allways a little brief. She has a remarkable head for figures.

Jack Pommeroy:
[Lewdly] And quite a figure for head, I would imagine.

[laughs]

Cashier:
How would you like the money, sir?

Horace Rumpole:
Preferably in enormous quantities.

Judge Roger 'The Mad Bull' Bullingham:
Mr Rumpole! With your alleged great knowledge of literature, I am sure you are aware of the quotation about "The Law's delay"?

Horace Rumpole:
Indeed, My Lord, I seem to recall it is next to the one about "The Impudence of Office".

[Frank Armstrong is accused of renting out non-existent holiday locations]

Ward-Webster:
On one occasion at least, a mobile home was actually removed from an unhappy mother just as she was about to enter it.

Judge Roger 'The Mad Bull' Bullingham:
Instead of the mother running from home, the home ran away from the mother.

[jury laughs]

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] Oh well done, Bull, quite the stand-up comic.

[Guthrie Featherstone is leading Horace Rumpole in a case of safe-cracking]

Guthrie Featherstone, QC MP:
Of course I'll mitigate.

Horace Rumpole:
Mitigate? "My Lord, my client only went in to buy a seven-penny stamp. But as he was kept waiting by ten old ladies with pension books, he lost his patience and blew the safe."

Guthrie Featherstone, QC MP:
[ironically] Very good mitigation.

Guthrie Featherstone, QC MP:
If you ask me, this case is as dead as a doornail.

Guthrie Featherstone, QC MP:
So are we all eventually.

Horace Rumpole:
I'm not exactly doing your case.

Charlie Wheeler:
Oh, you're not?

Horace Rumpole:
No, your case is being handled by Mr. Guthrie Featherstone, QC, MP, whose name is constantly mentioned in the corridors of power.

Horace Rumpole:
The flu is a disease with endless possibilities.

Horace Rumpole:
Here, I give you a toast. Here's to the future.

Hilda Rumpole:
Our future!

Horace Rumpole:
[Laconically] Which now shows every sign of being exactly like our past.

[Rumpole is ill in bed and Hilda is taking his temperature]

Hilda Rumpole:
[looking at the thermometer] Rumpole, you're not normal.

Horace Rumpole:
[groans weakly] I'm dying.

Hilda Rumpole:
Nonsense! What did Doctor Hanson say it was?

Horace Rumpole:
[ominously] Death. He says there's a lot of it about.

Horace Rumpole:
Ah, juries are rather like God Almighty, Mr. Skinner, totally unpredictable.

Horace Rumpole:
[trying to talk George out of marriage] George, don't, don't! It'a like pleading guilty for an indefinite sentence... with no parole.

Horace Rumpole:
You seem to have forgotten what my religion is - having fun with the prosecution.

Horace Rumpole:
Lawyers amnd tarts, Miss Trant, the two oldest professions in the world, and we always aim to please!

Horace Rumpole:
An Englishman's gin bottle is his castle.

Horace Rumpole:
Even judges are human. Not many people know that.

Guthrie Featherstone, QC MP:
[after realizing he has missed his bus] I shouldn't have stood here chattering to you, Rumpole. I must be a complete idiot.

Horace Rumpole:
[after Featherstone runs for a taxi] Is that a confession we can accept as the truth, my lord?

Marigold Featherstone:
You've got absolutely no judgment, Guthrie. It must come as something of a drawback in your profession.

Horace Rumpole:
There is no evidence more unreliable than a confession. Don't imagine people ever tell the truth about themselves.

[Rumpole has just got back from the supermarket]

Horace Rumpole:
Your sugar, Madam.

Hilda Rumpole:
Sugar, for a baked pudding.

Horace Rumpole:
Excellent. I relish the Rumpole roly-poly.

Hilda Rumpole:
[disdainfully] Rumpole, this sugar is in lumps. What am I suppose to do? Jump up and down on it?

Horace Rumpole:
Well, do your best.

Horace Rumpole:
Who was it that said that Wagner's music isn't as bad as it sounds?

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard, Q.C.:
Look here, Rumpole, I would advise you to take this matter seriously!

Horace Rumpole:
[angrily] And I would advise you, Bollard, if you can find a taxidermist willing to undertake the work, to get stuffed!

[a few days earlier, Claude Erskine-Brown had asked Rumpole to give him an alibi by pretending that they had been to the opera together when in fact Erskine-Brown was planning to go with Liz Probert but did not want his wife to find out. Now he bursts in to Rumpole's office, looking very worried, and wants Rumpole to change his story]

Claude Erskine-Brown:
Rumpole...

Horace Rumpole:
Good Lord! You look as if the Valkyries have been after you all night.

Claude Erskine-Brown:
Well I have tell you, we *didn't* go to the opera together.

Horace Rumpole:
Oh, what a pity. I was quite looking forward to not being there!

[Phyllida Erskine-Brown has stopped talking to Claude because she has found out that he took Liz Probert to the opera]

Claude Erskine-Brown:
[plaintively] Horace, do you imagine Philly will ever speak to me again?

Horace Rumpole:
[reassuringly] Of course she will, Claude. Yes.

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] If only to say goodbye.

Horace Rumpole:
You can bet your dear old hair shirt there's going to be an argument!

Horace Rumpole:
You were having a bit of a walkout with Gleason's wife.

Hugo Lutterworth:
I don't want Amanda's name mentioned!

Horace Rumpole:
You may not want it mentioned, old darling, but the prosecution will mention it about every ten minutes.

Tristan Erskine-Brown:
Mr. Rumpole, aren't you going to eat your muesli?

Horace Rumpole:
[disdainfully] Looks like something they put in the bottom of birdcages.

Tristan Erskine-Brown:
It's awfully good for you. Makes you go regularly.

Phyllida 'Portia' Erskine-Brown:
Have you...

[indistinguishable]

Horace Rumpole:
Pomeroy's claret does that for me very nicely, thank you.

Horace Rumpole:
[in a conciliatory manner] I brought you a geranium. I hope you like it.

Hilda Rumpole:
Looks as though it's seen better days.

Horace Rumpole:
Well, you could say that about all of us, couldn't you?

Horace Rumpole:
If you're no good at the bar, they make you a blooming circus judge. I'm surprised Uncle Tom isn't Lord Chancellor by now.

Mrs. Whittaker:
I've taken to the bar rather late in life, I'm afraid.

Horace Rumpole:
Ah, just as well. The young can't stand the pace.

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard, Q.C.:
I think you were away sick when we agreed to take her on.

Horace Rumpole:
Oh, I was dying.

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard, Q.C.:
[Smiling] Really?

Horace Rumpole:
I changed my mind.

Tom Mottram MP:
Tom Mottram, Under-Secretrary Home Affairs, with special responsibility for prisons. I'm the fellow who tries to keep them in.

Horace Rumpole:
Horace Rumpole, Counsel for the Defence. I'm the fellow who tries to keep them out.

Horace Rumpole:
I may be a brilliant brief, Joby, but I'm unable to walk on water or turn base metals into gold.

Horace Rumpole:
[coming through the door as a burglar alarm sounds loudly] Hilda, Hilda, what's wrong? Is it an air raid?

Hilda Rumpole:
[pushing buttons on the controls of the alarm] Don't be so silly, Rumpole! It's perfectly simple. [pressing the digits] 3 - 4 - 8 - 9 - 6. You just press on this yellow button and you'll see it quiet immediately.

Horace Rumpole:
[the alarm is silent] What else have you installed? Death rays? Man traps? Are you going to sit in the kitchen all night with a double barreled shotgun? Come on, old darling, you've got to give the criminal classes a chance to earn their living.

Horace Rumpole:
'Gravitas?' Sounds like a breakfast food!

Audrey Wystan:
That's Mercy Charles, the Vice-Chancellor's wife. She used to be a model.

Horace Rumpole:
A model wife or a model model?

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard, Q.C.:
[Nervously] Yes...Rumpole, what's your opinion about secrets in married life?

Horace Rumpole:
Absolutely essential!

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard, Q.C.:
I mean, Rumpole, how do you find marriage?

Horace Rumpole:
[laughs] In my experience, you don't find it - it finds you. It comes creeping up unexpectedly and seizes you by the collar.

Jarvis Allen:
Jealousy might be a powerful motive for our client. That's a two-edged sword, Rumpole.

Horace Rumpole:
Two edged? Yes, most swords are.

Jarvis Allen:
I can't think of anyone on this circuit carrying on with a case after his leader had been sacked. It's not in the best traditions of the law.

Horace Rumpole:
Yes, well, of course, loyalty to one's leader, it is extremely important, but one mustn't forget the other great legal maxim, must one?

Jarvis Allen:
Why, what's that?

Horace Rumpole:
The show must go on!

[Rumpole is examining a broken mirror in the victim's dressing room]

Daniel Derwent:
Any help to you, is it?

Horace Rumpole:
Oh, it might be. It's what we lawyers call the "locus in quo".

Daniel Derwent:
Do you really? How frightfully camp of you! It's what we actors call a dressing room.

Horace Rumpole:
Dr. Overton, have you investigated previous cases of death by gunshot wound?

Dr. Overton:
Ah, I think, one.

Horace Rumpole:
Only one? I see, and have you been called before to give evidence in a murder trial?

Dr. Overton:
No, not actually.

Horace Rumpole:
Congratulations on your day-boo!

Fiona Allways:
Rumpole, Sprod wants *you* to defend her.

Horace Rumpole:
Well that's probably because you've given your sister a quite exaggerated idea of my abilities.

Fiona Allways:
Is it really possible to exaggerate your abilities?

Horace Rumpole:
[grins] No, probably not.

[Rumpole is defending Jennifer Postern who has confessed to shooting her husband]

Horace Rumpole:
Was your gun loaded when you met your husband?

Jennifer Postern:
Of course. I put up a pheasant. I was about to have a shot when I remembered it was after February - closed season for pheasants.

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] But not for husbands.

[Rumpole has just finished questioning Dr Overton, an inexperienced and over-confident pathologist. He holds up a book]

Horace Rumpole:
[patronisingly] If you intend to continue in your present line of work, may I recommend Professor Ackerman's "Gunshot Wounds in Forensic Medicine"? It's a handy little volume - and quite an easy read for the beginner.

Horace Rumpole:
Ballard's in his chambers and everything seems to be wrong in the world.

Horace Rumpole:
Claude Erskine-Brown was standing behind the door when they handed out generosity.

[Rumpole walks into Ballard's office, to find all his colleagues sat round a table]

Horace Rumpole:
Oh no! Not *another* chambers meeting!

Samuel Ballard Q.C.:
In the new age of efficiency at the Bar, Rumpole, it might be more appropriate to call it a board meeting.

Horace Rumpole:
Quite right. I'm bored to tears already.

Hilda Rumpole:
So, you think that men and women are entirely equal?

Horace Rumpole:
Everyone is equal in the dock, Hilda.

Hilda Rumpole:
And in the home?

Horace Rumpole:
Oh, well, naturally, yes, of course, yes, naturally, although, I suppose, some are born to command.

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself, whispering] She who must be...

Hilda Rumpole:
What?

Horace Rumpole:
I said trust me, Hilda. I shall always be a staunch supporter of women's rights.

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard Q.C.:
I told him Guthrie was a perfectly charming chap, of course.

Claude Erskine-Brown:
Oh, perfectly charming, no doubt about that!

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard Q.C.:
But as a judge, perhaps he lacks judgement.

Claude Erskine-Brown:
Yes, which is a pretty important quality in a judge.

Horace Rumpole:
[musing to himself] Ah, the Timsons, en famille, in all their glory. It's like an old school reunion. I've never seen so many ex-clients at one go. [out loud] Ah, Mr. Bernard. You're instructing me?

Mr. Bernard:
Always, in a Timson case, Mr. Rumpole.

Fred Timson:
Nothing but the best for the Timsons. Best solicitor, best barrister going. Shall I do the honours? Vi, my wife.

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] I got Vi off on a handling charge, after the Croydon bank raid. Well, there was really no evidence.

Fred Timson:
...Uncle Cyril...

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] What was his last outing, exactly? Carrying housebreaking instruments by night.

Fred Timson:
...Uncle Dennis. Oh, you remember Den, surely ?

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] Oh yes. Conspiracy to forge log books.

Fred Timson:
...and Den's Doris...

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] A bit of receiving a vast quantity of stolen scampi. Yes, acquitted by a majority.

Fred Timson:
...and yours truly, Frederick Timson, the boy's father.

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] Ah, we had a slip-up with Fred's last spot of bother. I was away, with flu. George Frobisher took it over. He got three years. He must only just have got out.

Fred Timson:
Well, now you know the whole family, Mr. Rumpole.

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] A family to breed from, the Timsons! Without them, the Old Bailey would go out of business.

Fred Timson:
It's, uh, young Jim's first, uh, appearance like at the Bailey.

Horace Rumpole:
Ah, his Bar Mitzvah, his First Communion!

Nick Rumpole:
Go on, Watson, you interest me strangely.

Howard Swainton:
[Reviewing Rumpole's request for bail] Is this a frivolous application?

Horace Rumpole:
Only if it is frivolous to allow the innocent their freedom.

Hilda Rumpole:
We need a second honeymoon.

Horace Rumpole:
[Dourly] The first one was bad enough!

Howard Swainton:
Is this judge someone you crossed swords with at the Old Bailey?

Horace Rumpole:
Swords? Nothing so gentle, Mowgli. Let's say chemical weapons. The old darling's summings-up are pure poison gas!

Hilda Rumpole:
[Gushingly] It seems like only yesterday that I was a young girl and you proposed to me.

Horace Rumpole:
[Acidly] No, it was longer than that.

Hilda Rumpole:
Can you imagine anyone throwing their wedding photograph overboard?

Hilda Rumpole:
[Sarcastically] Perish the thought!

Samuel 'Soapy Sam' Ballard, Q.C.:
The danger here is passive alcoholism. You have heard of passive smoking?

Horace Rumpole:
Yes, I heard of it, but personally I prefer the active variety.

Samuel Ballard Q.C.:
Ah, judge. This is a great day for Equity Court. We're celebrating Mrs. Claude Erskine-Brown elevated to the bench...

Mr. Justice Graves:
Yes...

Samuel Ballard Q.C.:
...and her husband in silk.

Mr. Justice Graves:
[Taken by surprise] Claude Erskine-Brown? [With total disdain] They must be giving away silk gowns with pounds of tea!

Horace Rumpole:
I give you a toast to Fred Timson and the criminals of England!

[last lines]

Mr. Justice Graves:
[referring to Rumpole] Will he never learn?

Samuel Ballard Q.C.:
[With grudging affection] I'm afraid, never!

[Rumpole has confessed to Hilda that Justice Oliphant has reported Rumpole to a disciplinary tribunal which will probably kick him out]

Hilda Rumpole:
I shall stand by you, Rumpole, no matter what the cost. I shall stand by you through thick and thin.

Horace Rumpole:
[to himself] Oh Hilda! I was afraid of that.

[Ballard is defending Rumpole at the disciplinary tribunal]

Samuel Ballard Q.C.:
You are known in some quarters as "The Quality of Mercy". Now if there were to be a most humble, contrite apology...

Mr. Justice Oliphant:
Rumpole would rather be disbarred than apologise to me.

Samuel Ballard Q.C.:
But if he would...

Mr. Justice Oliphant:
[gleefully] If he would, it would give him more genuine grief and pain than anything else in the world. I'd enjoy seeing that, I really would.

Horace Rumpole:
[Looking at a wine label and adressing Hearthstoke with disdain] Oh, dear! "M?thode Champenoise!" You disappoint me, Hearthrug!

Phyllida 'Portia' Erskine-Brown:
Actually, Charles, it's quite delicious.

Horace Rumpole:
What? Grape juice and gas?

[With sarcasm]

Horace Rumpole:
Wait for the headache!

Phyllida 'Portia' Erskine-Brown:
[to Cyril, her client] Oh, you know Rumpole's advising Dennis. Don't let us cut each other's throats, old darling. Honor among thieves. All that sort of nonsense.

Cyril Timson:
What are you sayin'?

Phyllida 'Portia' Erskine-Brown:
Well, you are a thief, Mr. Timson!

Cyril Timson:
That is very true.

Phyllida 'Portia' Erskine-Brown:
But you aren't a gunman!

Cyril Timson:
On my baby's head I'm not!

Claude Erskine-Brown:
How old's your baby?

Cyril Timson:
Thirty-one - in window cleanin'.

[talking about Den and Cyril Timson's attempt to break into a bank]

Horace Rumpole:
Their crime was ridiculously ambitious. They're not bank robbers. They should have stuck to thieving frozen fish from the cash-and-carry. It's like the two ends of a pantomime horse getting together to play Hamlet.

Horace Rumpole:
Obituaries can never be lively reading.

Hilda Rumpole:
It's, uh, lavender water. It's the lavender water that you give me every Christmas.

Horace Rumpole:
Oh, sorry. I didn't recognize it.

Hilda Rumpole:
Since we met, you've given me 40 bottles of lavender water.

Horace Rumpole:
Well, I don't know what else you'd like the smell of.