Pomading his eyebrows

      But my conversational bolt was shot. For once I was at a loss — as who would not be, on discovering that while he was bulling a chap's wife all over the shop and probably making a hell of an uproar, the chap himself was virtually next door brushing his teeeth or pomading his eyebrows . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.188, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bolt.

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.

A minor talent

I may not be good for much, but if I have a minor talent it’s for finding the back doors when coppers, creditors, and outraged are coming in the front. I had the advantage of having my pants up and my boots on this time…

Flashman's Lady, p.275, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, talent.

Elementary human relations

Ignorant women I have met, and I knew miss Elspeth must rank high among them, but I had not supposed until now that she had no earthly idea of elementary human relations. (Yet there were even married woman in my time who did not connect their husband's antics in bed with the conception of children.)


Flashman, pp. 57 - 58, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, ignorant, marital relations, antics,