Villainous two-rupee bravos

…I surveyed the company: villainous two-rupee bravos, painted harpies who should have been perched in trees, a seedy flute-and-tom-tom band accompanying a couple of gyrating nautches whom you wouldn’t have touched with a long pole, and Sikh brandy fit to corrode a bucket. I’ll never say a word against Boodle’s again, says I to myself; at least there you don’t have to sit with your back to the wall.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.170-71, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, survey.