Rumpole of the Bailey (TV Series)

Rumpole and the Genuine Article (1983)

Peggy Thorpe-Bates: Hilda Rumpole

Quotes 

• [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.

• [rather inebriated, Harold Brittling arrives at the Rumpoles' house for a consulation with Horace] 

  Harold Brittling : [to Hilda]  You look distinctly familiar to me. We've met before, Hilda, haven't we?

  Hilda Rumpole : I think it's hardly likely.

  Harold Brittling : [to Hilda]  Did you used to hover about the Old Monmouth pub in Charlotte Street? And didn't I once escort you home after the Guinness stout had been flowing rather too freely?

  [Horace looks on, mystified and intrigued] 

  Horace Rumpole : [to himself]  Either this little gnome is off his chump, or there are hidden depths to She Who Must Be Obeyed.