“Depends which ones you’re talking about,” says I. “Now, Spotted Tail was a gentleman. Chico Velasquez, on the other hand, was an evil vicious brute. But you probably never met either of ‘em. Care for a brandy?”
He went pink. “I thank you, no. By gentlemen, I suppose,” he went on, bristling. “you mean one who has despaired to the point of submission, while brute would no doubt describe any sturdy independent patriot who resisted the injustice of an alien rule, or revolted against broken treaties—“
“If sturdy independence consists of cutting off women’s fingers and fringing your buckskin with them, then Chico was a patriot, no error,” says I. “Mind you, that was the soft end of his behaviour. Hey waiter, another one, and keep your thumb out of it, d’ye hear?”
Flashman and the Redskins, pp.18-19, Pan Books edition, 1983.
Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, brandy.
