A pleasing gift

Aye. She’s always had the priceless gift of pleasing, has Elspeth, and making people laugh — for she’s a damned funny woman when she wants to be, a top-hole mimic, and all the more engaging because she plainly hasn't got two brains to rub together. “Never see her but it sets me in humour,” Palmerston used to say. That was her talent, to make folk happy.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.225, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Stubborn little duck

      “Now, my dear Sir Harry, I must tell you,” says her majesty, with that stubborn little duck of the head that always made Palmerston think she was going to butt him in the guts, “I am quite determined to learn Hindoostanee.”


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.11, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Furtive looks

…when great men wax confidential I find myself taking furtive looks over my shoulder. I just had to think of Palmerston.


Flashman and the Dragon, p.130, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



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Palmerston was in the saddle

Which was what you’d have expected any half-competent government to stage-manage in the first place, but Palmerston was in the saddle by then, and he wasn’t really good at politics, you know.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.18, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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You can't fight fate

…but you can’t fight fate, especially when he’s called Palmerston.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.14, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,fate, Palmerston.