Squiffy Asquith and the human hawk

. . . the defendants were represented by two of the best hatchet-men in the business, Charles Russell and young Asquith — you know the latter as the buffoon who infests Number 10 Downing Street at the moment, and my recollection of him is as a shining morning face to which I once presented a prize at the City of London School, but for all that he was accounted a sharp hand in court, while Russell was a human hawk, and looked it.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.248, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, lawyer.

A prime subject

It was bound to get out — as I’d determined it should from the moment I’d stood in Gordon-Cumming’s presence, weighed him up, and realised what a prime subject he was for shoving down the drain.


Flashman and the Tiger, p246, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, drain.

Bellowing his grievance

Had I ever, I wondered, encountered such an immortally conceited ass with a truer touch for self-destruction? George Custer came to mind. Aye put him and Gordon-Cumming on the edge of a precipice and I’d not care to bet which would tumble first into the void, bellowing his grievance.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.240, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, conceited.

Bellies and loins

      Berkeley Levett, a sound muttonhead in Cumming’s regiment, and presumably as well disposed to his chief as subalterns ever are, given that Guards officers are usually incapable of any feeling outside their bellies and loins.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.227, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, feeling.

Tan Tan Tivvy Tally Ho

. . . Lycett Green, a stiffish, old young man, well pleased with himself and his position as master of foxhounds in some northern swamp. In my experience there are dolts, pompous dolts and M.F.Hs . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.227, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, dolts.

Worn uncommon well

      By the time of Tranby, to be sure, Elspeth was of an age where it should have been unlikely that either Bertie or Cumming would try to drag her behind the sofa, but I still didn't care to think of her within the fat-fingered reach of one or the trim moustache of t’other. She’d worn uncommon well; middle sixties and still shaped like a Turkish belly-dancer, with the same guileless idiot smile and wondrous blue eyes that had set me slavering when she was sixteen — she'd performed like a demented houri then and who was to say she’d lost the taste in half a century?

Flashman and the Tiger, p.224, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, sofa.

Babbling Brooke

. . . Daisy, who was known as Babbling Brooke, was a sort of mad socialist — even today, when she's Countess of Warwick, no less, she still raves in a ladylike way about the workers, enough said. At the time of Tranby she was a stunning looker, rich as Croesus, randy as a rabbit, and Prince Bertie's mount of the moment — indeed, I ain’t sure she wasn't the love of his life . . .

Flashman and the Tiger, p.223, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, socialist.

Scandal, disgrace, and general devilment

      So this baccarat nonsense, with its splendid possibilities of scandal, disgrace, and general devilment, looked made to order for diversion, provided it was properly mismanaged — which, with Bertie in a fine funk, Coventry and Williams advising, and myself ready to butter the stairs as chance offered, it probably would.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.222, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, butter.