Write to the President

     ‘He is over ninety, you know,’ said Lady Helen, and Mr Franklin said, yes he knew.
     ‘One forgets, sometimes,’ said Lady Helen. ‘He doesn’t behave at all like a very old man — he remembers everything, and his brain is so alert and active. Did you know, that only fourteen years ago, he was staying at the Residency in Peking, when it was attacked in the Boxer Rising, and he took charge of the artillery belonging to your American contingent, and commanded it all through the siege? He was seventy-eight then. And when the Residency was relieved, the officer in charge of the American Marines said he would write to the President to ask for some special decoration for him, and Uncle Harry laughed and asked one of the Marines to give him his hat, and then he put it on and said: “That’ll do better than a medal,” and off he went.’ She pressed the old man’s hand, and Mr Franklin saw there were tears in her eyes. ‘We’re very proud of him, of course.’


Mr American, p.432, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


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Sherlock Holmes versus Harry Flashman

 . . . “besides, this is a nautical, not a military man; he is not English, but either American or German — probably the latter, since he has certainly studied at a second-rate German university, but undoubtedly he has been to America quite lately. He is known to the police, is currently working as a ship’s steward, or some equally menial capacity at sea — for I observe that he has declined even from his modest beginnings — and will, unless I am greatly mistaken, be in Hamburg by the beginning of next week — provided he wakes up in time. More than that,” says the know-all ignoramus, “I cannot tell you from a superficial examination. Except, of course, for the obvious fact that he found his way here via Piccadilly Circus.”


Flashman and the Tiger, p.310, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Sincerely mourned

…I doubt if any man in the history of the United States was more deeply or sincerely mourned — and I ain’t forgetting friend Abraham, either. He was even more detested in Dixie than J.B., and he was just a politician, while J.B. was a fighting man and a rebel, a combination which no American could resist.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.348, Harper Collins, 1995.


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Not so quiet Americans

      “Unofficial death warrants have a habit of recoiling,” says he coolly. “My countrymen have one great failing — they talk too much.”


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.335, Harper Collins, 1995.

 
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Life at the American bar

He was a Switzer, though American-born, named Kagi… He’d been a teacher, and had fought in Kansas, where he’d distinguished himself by shooting a judge — who in turn put three slugs into Kagi, which gives you some notion of what life at the American bar was like in those days.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.229, Harper Collins, 1995.


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Curious American compulsion

…I didn’t overhear much more, for young Anderson, who was seated next to me, had that curious American compulsion to tell you his life-story, as well as his views on everything under the sun.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.216, Harper Collins, 1995.



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Doffing his tile

The Yankee secret service evidently left nothing to chance. “Good luck, Comber . . . and,” he added quietly, “if need be, good hunting.” Cool as a trout, rot him, doffing his tile and knuckling his lip-whisker as we drove away.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.196, Harper Collins, 1995.


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Best eastern colleges

...as he spoke in that lordly half-English accent that they learn in the best Eastern colleges.

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.186, Harper Collins, 1995.


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I'll not deny it

      They say that Yankees are the smartest salesmen in the world, and I’ll not deny it.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.169, Harper Collins, 1995.


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The great curse of the new world

…and everywhere the Great Curse of the New World, the American Child, in all its raucous, spoiled, undisciplined, selfish ghastliness, the female specimens keeping up an incessant high-pitched whine and the male infants racketing like cow-pokes on payday. There’s nothing wrong with grown Americans, by and large; you won’t find heartier men or bonnier women anywhere, but the only remedy I can see for their children is to run Herod for President.

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, pp.142-43, Harper Collins, 1995.


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Beat their bellies

…I was content to idle my way through the dinner, which like all American meals was gargantuan and over-rich; how the devil they can put away a massive breakfast of steak, ham, eggs, terrapin, or giant oysters, two dinners at noon and five, and still be fit to beat their bellies at supper, is beyond me; even Annette, who wasn’t two pisspots and a handle high, worked her way through five courses without breaking a sweat on her pale immaculate brow.

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, pp.139-40, Harper Collins, 1995.


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Foreign service

      I’ve never cared, much, for service with foreign forces. At best it’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and the rations are likely to pay havoc with your innards. The American Confederates weren’t bad, I suppose, bar their habit of spitting on carpets, and the worse I can say of the Yankees is that they took soldiering seriously and seemed to be under the impression that they had invented it.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.214, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Perform the honours

“You know this man as Jassa,” says he to me. “Well, let me perform the honours by presenting Dr Josiah Harlan of Philadelphia, former packet-rat, imposter, coiner, spy, traitor, revolutionary, and expert in every rascality he can think of — and can’t he think, just? No common blackguard, mind you — Prince of Ghor once, weren’t you, Josiah, and unfrocked governor of Gujerat, to say nothing of being a pretender (it’s the truth Flashman) to the throne of Afghanistan, no less! You know what they call this beauty up in the high hills? The Man Who Would Be King!”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.108, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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Exchanging governments

      1876 being the hundredth anniversary of the glorious moment when the Yankee colonists exchanged a government of incompetent British scoundrels for one of ambitious American sharpers…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.251, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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One of the hazards of Washington

Any gang of politicos is like the eighth circle of Hell, but the American breed is specially awful because they take it seriously and believe it matters; wherever you went, to dinner or an excursion or to pay a call, or even take a stroll, you were deafened with their infernal prosing—I daren’t go to the privy without making sure some seedy heeler wasn’t lying in wait to get me to join a caucus.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.229, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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An Apache ponders

Why should the Americanos try to force their law on us? . . . It is because their spirit tells them to spread their law to all people, and they believe their spirit is better than ours.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.167, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Straight and steady

      At this Wootton lifted his unkempt head and looked at me, and I stopped dead. He was a ragged nobody—with eyes like clear blue lights, straight and steady. Then he glanced away—and I thought, don’t let this one go. It may be a picnic on the plains, but you’ll be none the worse with him along.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.60, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Yankee sauce

He stood considering me. ‘What a worthless creature you are – what shreds of loyalty have you, you object?’
   ‘Plenty – to myself,’ says I. ‘Just as you have, Captain Spring.’
    His scar went pink; then he laughed again. ‘Well, well. You’ve picked up some Yankee sauce over here, I believe.

Flash For Freedom!, p.277, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Hand feeding Americans

By and large I’m partial to Americans. They make a great affectation of disliking the English and asserting their equality with us, but I’ve discovered that underneath they dearly love a lord, and if you’re civil and cool and don’t play it with too high a hand you can impose on them quite easily. I’m not a lord, of course, but I’ve got the airs when I want ’em, and know how to use them in moderation. That’s the secret, a nice blending of the plain, polite gentleman with just a hint of Norman blood, and they’ll eat out of your hand and boast to their friends in Philadelphia that they know a man who’s on terms with Queen Victoria and yet, by gosh, is as nice a fellow as they’ve ever struck.

Flash For Freedom!, p.117, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Claim a record

I wonder sometimes if any man on earth has come to in a cell more often than I have. It had been happening to me all my life; perhaps I could claim a record. But if I did some American would be sure to beat it at once.

Royal Flash, p.88, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.