Rumpole of the Bailey (TV Series)

Rumpole and the Barrow Boy (1988)

Leo McKern: Horace Rumpole

Quotes 

• 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.

• [Fred Timpson consults Rumpole] 

  Fred Timson : It's not me I'm worried about, Mr Rumpole. Young Nigel,

  Horace Rumpole : Nigel, I don't think we've met professionally.

  Fred Timson : That's Cousin Andy's lad what went into the City. Works cheek by jowl with them lads for Eton and Harrow College.

  Horace Rumpole : And this prodigy is in some sort of trouble, is he?

  Fred Timson : Wouldn't mind *his* trouble. Runs around in an F-reg Porsche, girlfriend the boss's daughter.

  Horace Rumpole : What can I do to help him?

  Fred Timson : Well he's got himself arrested. Fraud Squad.

  Horace Rumpole : Ah! So he hasn't let down the honour of the Timsons after all.

• Horace Rumpole : It seems you know Sir Christopher Japhet's daughter.

  Nigel Timson : We've been going out together for about six months. We make up a dink.

  Horace Rumpole : A dink. Do translate.

  Nigel Timson : Double income, no kids. It's what we call it.

  Horace Rumpole : How quaint.

  Nigel Timson : Now it seems I'm a YID - young indictable dealer.

  [laughs nervously] 

  Nigel Timson : It's not really very funny, is it?

  Horace Rumpole : [to Mr Bernard, Nigel Timson's solicitor]  We've got to start learning a new language - do you you realise that, Mr Bernard. You can forget about tea-leaves and shooters. We're in a strange new world of DINKs, dawn raids and Chinese walls. Doesn't it make you a bit nostalgic for the simple old days when you just smashed a window, grabbed some loot and ran? The world's changed: God knows how we're going to get used to it.