To be out of harm's way he prudently thinks is something too, and therefore he accepts your brother's offer.

Brass, Mr Swiveller is yours.' 'I am very glad, Sir,' said Mr Brass, 'very glad indeed.

Mr Swiveller, Sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship.

You may be very proud, Sir, to have the friendship of Mr Quilp.' Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing of friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass, at whom he stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the watchful dwarf beyond measure.

As to the divine Miss Sally herself, she rubbed her hands as men of business do, and took a few turns up and down the office with her pen behind her ear.
'I suppose,' said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend, 'that Mr Swiveller enters upon his duties at once?
It's Monday morning.' 'At once, if you please, Sir, by all means,' returned Brass.
'Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,' said Quilp; 'she'll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his Blackstone, his Coke upon Littleton, his Young Lawyer's Best Companion.' 'He is exceedingly eloquent,' said Brass, like a man abstracted, and looking at the roofs of the opposite houses, with his hands in his pockets; 'he has an extraordinary flow of language.