Chapter 1: Page 9: Line 46

 Green Brief-bag over one shoulder, but lately return'd from a Coffee-House Meeting, he is bound later this evening for a slightly more formal version of the same thing,— feeling, here with the children, much as might a Coaching Passenger let off at Nightfall among an unknown Populace, to wait for a connecting Coach, alone, pedestrian, desiring to pass the time to some Revenue, if not Profit.

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Line 46 Vulgarized:
Uncle Ives just got back from meeting with a potential client at a local coffee house and is hanging around the LeSpark house for a bit before he has to rush off to a meeting with a paying client. Not knowing exactly what to do with himself in this children's back room during Uncle Cherrycoke's Story Time, he interrupts to see if maybe Cherrycoke needs a lawyer.

Subtext:
The foundation for my entire interpretation of Line 46 rests on the phrase "green Brief-bag over one shoulder" and that this is taking place in 1786. If his were taking place in 2012, I'd simply assume the "Brief-bag" was a ubiquitous messenger bag used to hold the laptop and other writing materials of 95% of the people at the local coffee shop and that Uncle Ives was a slacker and/or writer and/or hipster rather than a lawyer. I'm also assuming the first meeting was with a potential client because it wasn't particularly formal while the later meeting must be with a paying client which is really the only reason to suggest it's "a slightly more formal version."
    I understand that I'm not even allowing for the possibility that he's a gigolo even if that's an interpretation that's entirely possible being that maybe Uncle Ives was on a personal date and later he'll be on a paid date and during that time, he's really uncomfortable hanging around kids where he obviously can't perform any tricks for some extra cash.
    No, you know what? I am allowing for that possibility! In fact, I'm hoping that's the actual case!
    At the very least, Pynchon might be comparing lawyers to prostitutes. I think that was an okay insult to make back in 1997. But now they're sex workers and we understand, especially with all of the online possibilities, how much agency they have in their own life and how sex work is no different from any other kind of employment. Probably better because, with much of it online, a sex worker can easily be their own boss. Which automatically makes the job better than any non-sex work job where you have to listen to some asshole boss.