No half-measures

      One of the lessons I'd impress on young chaps is this: if you want to pull a bluff, do it with your might, no half-measures. However unlikely the ploy, if your neck is brazen enough, it's odds on you'll get away with it. Take the time I was caught in flagrante in a Calcutta hotel by an outraged husband and sold him on the idea I was a doctor sounding her chest, or the occasion when they found me climbing through Jefferson Davis's skylight and I pretended to be a workman come to fix his lightning-rod. A moment's guilty hesitation and I'd have been done for; indignant astonishment at being interfered with saw me through.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.115, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bluff.

And another thing

      ‘There’s another thing – matter of fact it was the first thought that popped into my head when I saw you just now – I don’t know how you’d feel about it, though – I mean, perhaps your wounds ain’t healed yet?’
      He hesitated. ‘Fire away,’ says I, thinking perhaps he wanted to introduce me to his sister.

Flashman's Lady, pp.16-17, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, sister.