Camps and courts of the mighty

You may think this a tame enough occupation for one who has assisted at as many major catastrophes as I have, and a poor setting after the camps and courts of the mighty, but I was getting on, you know, and as the Good Book says, there's a time for racketing about crying Ha-ha! among the trumpets, and a time for sitting back with your feet dipped in butter watching others fall in the mire.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.222, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Flashman, friend of the worker

…the coolies could be seen languidly pursuing the only two occupations known to the Chinese peasant: to wit, standing stock-still up to the knees in paddy-water holding a bullock on a rope, or shifting mud very slowly from one point to another. Deny them these employments, and they would simply lie down and die, which a good many of them seemed to do anyway.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.19, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

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