Rumpole of the Bailey

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, a middle-aged London barrister who defended a broad variety of clients, often underdogs. The popularity of the TV series led to the stories being presented in other media, including books and radio.

Horace Rumpole: [of his wife, Hilda] She who must be obeyed.

Taken from H. Rider Haggard's She (1886; 1887)

Horace Rumpole: [of Phyllida] The Portia of our Chambers.

Nick Rumpole [to his father, Horace]: Go on, Watson, you interest me strangely.

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

Horace Rumpole: [to himself] Ah, his Bar Mitzvah, his First Communion!

Mr Justice Everglade: I imagine your client says he was not ejusdem generis with the other lads.

Horace Rumpole: Ejusdem generis, my Lord? Oh yes, he's always saying that. Ejusdem generis is a phrase in constant use in his part of Brixton.

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.

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

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

Rumpole: [to himself] Go into court on a 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 knees jammed together!

Hilda Rumpole: You know why Erica went home, don't you? ... She didn't much like the questions that you asked in court; she thought they were tasteless.

Horace Rumpole: Distasteful.

Hilda Rumpole: What?

Horace Rumpole: That's the word: distasteful. They have trouble with English, you know.

Horace Rumpole: Lawyers and 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.

Phyllida Trant: We don't have to prove cruelty, do we, Mr Rumpole? It's "intolerable conduct" since the Divorce Law Reform Act, 1969.

Horace Rumpole: [to himself] It's not the frivolity that makes women intolerable. It's the ghastly enthusiasm — that mustard keenness to get into the lacrosse team, that relentless drive to learn the Divorce Law Reform Act by heart. That, and the French perfume.

Hilda Rumpole: You're going to seed. You can't even keep a divorce case going.

Horace Rumpole: [to Hilda] Do you know why my divorce case collapsed under me? The clients were reconciled. [to himself] Because how ever awful it is, how ever silent and unendurable it is, how ever much they may hate each others' guts over the three-piece chintz-covered lounge suite, they can't stand to be alone. [to Hilda] Isn't that strange, Hilda? They'd rather have war together than a lonely peace.

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

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

Hilda Rumpole: Rumpole, you're not normal.

Horace Rumpole: I'm dying.

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

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

[Rumpole's illness is interrupted by news of a safe-blowing case]

Hilda Rumpole: I thought you were dying.

Horace Rumpole: Dying will have to be postponed. Safe-blowing comes first.

[Guthrie Featherstone is leading Rumpole in the case]

Guthrie Featherstone: 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."

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: Here, I give you a toast. Here's to our future.

Hilda Rumpole: The future!

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