In my seventieth year

Racing’s well enough when you’re young and riding yourself, but now that I was in my seventieth year and disinclined to back anything more mettlesome than an armchair,* I found it quite as interesting as a sermon in Gaelic.

* a docile horse


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


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This New England upbringing

Humanity never ceases to amaze me. Here was this fine lad, old enough to vote, in command of a hundred men and a fighting ship which he could handle like a young Nelson, brave as a bull, I don’t doubt – and quivering like a virgin’s fan because a buxom tart had invaded his cabin. It’s this New England upbringing, of course; even a young manhood spent in naval service hadn’t obliterated the effect of all those sermons.

Flash For Freedom!, p.122, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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