H. de Vere Stacpoole and Margaret Stacpoole

“ Then, one day his actress turned out an actress and the following night he came out of the Cocoa Tree owing a gambling debt of a thousand pounds that he could not pay. His father paid, on his promising to turn over a new leaf, which he did. But his youth was checked, his brightness eclipsed, and arm in arm with common sense he set out on the long journey that led him at last to the high position of a joyless, loveless, desolate, wealthy solicitor of sixty—respected, very much respected; in fact, less a man than a firm. ”

“ A little after ten Simon reached Old Sergeant's Inn and entered his office.
Brownlow, the chief clerk, had just arrived and Simon, nodding to him, passed into his private room where his letters were laid out, hung up his hat and coat, and set to business.
It was a sight to watch his face as he read letter after letter, laying each in order under a marble paper weight. One might have fancied oneself watching law at work, in seclusion and unadorned with robes. He did not need glasses; his eyes were still the eyes of a young man. ”

“ If a favored client were present, the client would be asked to have a glass. The bottle and two glasses were kept in the safe in the corner of the room. Ye gods! Fancy in your modern solicitor's office a wine bottle in the principal safe and the solicitor asking a client “to have a drink!” Yet the green-seal sherry, famous amidst the cognoscenti, and the safe and the atmosphere of the room and the other-day figure of Simon all were in keeping, part of a unique and Georgian whole. ”

“ To the general public this great and potent firm was almost unknown, yet Pettigrew & Pettigrew had cut off heirs to furnish material for a dozen Braddon novels; had smothered numerous screaming tragedies in high life and buried them at dead of night, and all without a wrinkle on the brow of the placid old firm that drove its curricle through the reigns of the Georges, took snuff in the days of Palmerston, and in the days of Edward Rex still refused to employ the typewriter. ”