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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Rule Britannia, thinks I

. . . our jaunty subaltern was putting on dog in no uncertain manner. His old red coat was sponged and pressed, his whiskers shone with pomade, his cap was on three hairs, his cane under his arm, and his monocle in his eye. Rule Britannia, thinks I, and stamped my heel in reply to the barra salaam* he threw me . . .


 *Big salute


Flashman on the March, p.245, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Bad medicine

...the nasty young Norse God had turned into a jowly sausage-faced old buffer whose head seemed to grow straight out of his collar without benefit of neck... I tipped my tile instead, he did likewise, frowning, and a moment later he was clambering aboard and I was legging it in search of a gallon or two of brandy. Quite a turn he'd given me — but then, he always did. Bad medicine, Bismarck; bad man.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.38, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Valkyrian proportions

So it was with a light heart and my hat on three hairs that I found myself strolling under the famous lime trees to the Brandenburg Thor a few weeks later, taking a long slant at the Thier Garten in the June sunshine, and marvelling at the Valkyrian proportions of German women...


Flashman and the Tiger, p.27, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, proportions.