Down in Pennyfields

‘I’d apologise for shaming you at the Athenaeum, but the sooner you’re out of that awful hole, the better. If they turf you out, come to me, I’ll put you up for a decent place — Madame Desirée’s, off the Haymarket, or a Chinese establishment I know down in Pennyfields.’



Mr American, p.392, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, shaming.

Safety in numbers, what?

      “Careful o’ that one, sir. She’d a Haymarket Hussar,* and quite desperate altogether.” From which I gathered he, too, had taken the lady’s fancy, and avoided her for his own good.
      “Haymarket or Grant Road?” says I, and he said ’twas no joke, Theodore being a real mad miser with his women. “A fellow on sentry-go at the hareem cadged a cup of tej from one of the concubines, and was lashed to a pulp. Best to keep together when the likes of Madam Tamagno’s on the prowl; safety in numbers, what?”
      Unless she likes to drill by platoons,” says I, and he exclaimed “I say!” . . .


*Haymarket Hussar: a courtesan of the better class. Grant Road was the prostitutes’ quarter in Bombay


Flashman on the March, p.217, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, fancy.

Sundry viragos

…I sat grimly on, wishing I’d gone into Holy Orders and ignoring the blandishments of sundry viragos of the sort you can have for fourpence with a mutton pie and a pint of beer thrown in, but better not, for the pie meat’s sure to be off.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.171, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, mutton.

Dropping my hammer and chisel

…her gown of crimson silk clung to a shape which English travellers are wont to describe as ‘a thought too generous for the European taste’ but which, if I’d been a classical sculptor, would have had me dropping my hammer and chisel and reaching for the meat.

Flashman's Lady, pp.100-01, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, sculptor.

Well, it worked for Shane Warne

…even Brown pumped me by the hand and slapped me on the shoulder, yelling ‘Bowled, oh well bowled, Flashy!’ (You see the moral: cover ever strumpet in London if you’ve a mind to, it don’t signify so long as you can take wickets).

Flashman's Lady, p.31, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, moral.

An archdeacon on holiday

She was a knowing wench, however, and eventually had him galloping away like an archdeacon on holiday…

Flashman at the Charge, p.40, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,archdeacon, holiday.

Quivering setter, thrashing stoat

She did him proud, too, with a strapping blonde wench – satin boots and all – and at the sight of her Willy moaned feverishly and pointed, quivering, like a setter. He was trying to clamber all over her almost before the door was closed, and of course he made a fearful mess of it, thrashing away like a stoat in a sack, and getting nowhere.

Flashman at the Charge, p.40, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,setter, stoat.

Old school house party

I could see this was the kind of house-party that wasn’t Flashy’s style at all. I was used to hunting weeks where you dined any old how, with lots of brandy and singing, and chaps p_____g in the corner and keeping all hours, and no females except the local bareback riders, as old Jack Mitton used to call them

Flash For Freedom!, p.24, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Jack Mytton, house party.