We took things much more easily in the Commons than they could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and that set us, as a privileged class, apart.

He said it was impossible to conceal the disagreeable fact, that we were chiefly employed by solicitors; but he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretensions.
I asked Mr.Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional business?
He replied, that a good case of a disputed will, where there was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was, perhaps, the best of all.

In such a case, he said, not only were there very pretty pickings, in the way of arguments at every stage of the proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to the Delegates, and then to the Lords), but, the costs being pretty sure to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively and spirited manner, and expense was no consideration.

Then, he launched into a general eulogium on the Commons.

What was to be particularly admired (he said) in the Commons, was its compactness.