Spunk an' gumption

“…ev’ybody — got sumpn to take to market, if they got the spunk an’ gumption to make the most o’ theyselves. You is what you think you is — an’ that’s why Ah’m a lady.”


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.293, Harper Collins, 1995.


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Conversation from a Victorian marriage

      ‘Harry – you are sure you have not been astride Mrs Lade?’
      I was so amazed she had to say it twice.
      ‘Eh? Good God, girl, what do you mean?’
      ‘Have you mounted her?’
      I can’t think how I’ve kept my sanity, talking to that woman for sixty years. Of course, at the time we’d only been married for five, and I hadn’t plumbed the depths of her eccentricity. I could only gargle and exclaim:
      ‘Damnit, I’ve told you I haven’t! And where on earth – it is shocking to use expressions of that kind!’
      ‘Why? You use them – I heard you, at Lady Chalmers’, when you were talking to Jack Speedicut, and you were both remarking on Lottie Canvendish, and whatever her husband could see in such a foolish creature, and you said you expected he found her a good mount. I dare say I was not meant to hear.
      ‘I should think not! and I can have said no such thing – and anyway, ladies ain’t meant to understand such . . . such vulgar words.'
      ‘The ladies who get mounted must understand them.’
      ‘They ain’t ladies!’
      ‘Why not? Lottie Canvendish is. So am I, and you have mounted me – lots of times.’ She sighed, and nestled close, God help us.

Flashman's Lady, pp.195-6, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Jewish.