General Flashman remarks on the capacity of British prime ministers

. . . they took a cab to the famous club, where Sir Harry stared around the imposing hall and remarked that things weren’t what they had once been. ‘Saw Palmerston fall down that staircase — the whole damned way from top to bottom. Tight as a fiddler’s bitch. Finished up wrapped round that pillar there. Can’t see Asquith doing that, somehow. Rotten prime minister. D’you know, I presented him with a school prize once? Must be fifty years ago — ugly little swot he was then, and hasn’t improved over the years. Mind you, Balfour wouldn’t have been any better — “Pretty Fanny”, they used to call him. Only good thing I know about him was that he taught Asquith how to ride a bicycle. Argued some kind of capacity, I suppose — I’d sooner try to teach a whale to play the fiddle.’


Mr American, p.388, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



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Like pistol cracks

      They gave her dinner, and she entranced and appalled the company by laying into the goods like a starving python; as Stanley reported: “She ate like a gourmande, disposing of what came before her without regard to the horrified looks . . . pudding before beef, blancmange with potatoes . . . emitting labial smacks like pistol cracks.”


Flashman on the March, p.283, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



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Never to be seen again

Word came just then that Masteeat was expected hourly, and Warkite was off like a rising grouse, never to be seen again.



Flashman on the March, p.282, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Up Simba!

      “My dear chap!” I clapped his arm in a comradely style; it was like patting an elephant’s leg.


Flashman on the March, p.278, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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A great wax

He was in a great wax, glowering through his beard like an ape in a thicket . . .


Flashman on the March, p.276, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Canard mécanique

Speedy was nodding like a mechanical duck.



Flashman on the March, p.275, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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An enemy caught

From above it looked like the discharge from an overturned ant-hill spilling across the plain towards an enemy caught unprepared by the sheer speed of the attack.
       That was when Bob Napier earned his peerage.



Flashman on the March, p.238, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Bless the rains down in Africa

It began to rain, coming down in stair-rods that pitted the mud like buckshot . . .



Flashman on the March, p.222, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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One-eyed Riley

It was like seeing the Prince Consort or Gladstone taking the width of the pavement and singing “One-eyed Riley”.


Flashman on the March, p.203, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Talking book

Talking like a book, as usual, and keeping her head.


Flashman on the March, p.134, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



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Trout fishing in Africa

. . . and enjoying the aforesaid bout of hareem gymnastics, in the course of which we rolled down the bank into the water, not that Uliba seemed to notice, the dear enamoured girl, for she thrashed about in the shallows like a landed trout.


Flashman on the March, p.101, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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A jaw like a pike

There were four of the Bootnecks⁸ under a sergeant with a jaw like a pike, all very trim with their Sniders slung . . .


8. A Bootneck or Leatherneck is a Royal Marine, supposedly so-called from the leather tab securing the uniform collar in the nineteenth century, or possibly from the leather neck-stock. Leatherneck was adopted as a nickname for the U.S. Marines early in the twentieth century. Royal Marines were also known as Jollies, which according to Eric Partridge was once the nickname of the London Trained Bands.



Flashman on the March, p.12, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Steamboat Willie

. . . he was cursing like a steamboat pilot with his toes in a mangle . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.308, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Racing feet

. . . there was the crash of a door being hurled back, feet racing on the stairs — and General Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., K.B, K.C.I.E., was into that closet like an electrifies stoat . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.307, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Bold Oscar

. . . and caught the eye of the bold Oscar, who was holding forth languidly to a group of his fritillaries near the bar entrance, looking as usual like an overfed trout in a toupé.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.290, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Shaken and desperate

. . . if it had shaken him to the point where I was his dear Harry, he must be desperate. I'd steered him out of more than one scrape in the past, and here he was again, looking at me like an owl in labour.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.216, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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A true meeting of minds

It was a true meeting of minds, for I doubt if a woman ever stripped faster from full court regalia, and we revelled in each other like peasants in a hayrick . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.187, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Like a Mississippi pilot

. . . and a slender, red-headed piece who drank like a Mississippi pilot, with no visible effect.



Flashman and the Tiger, p.187, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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First draught

... for while I was still weak as a Hebrew's toddy I was chipper in mind with all perils past


Flashman and the Tiger, p.161, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Knee slapping

He slapped his knee, merry as a maggot.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.121, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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