We ain’t top-drawer

      She’s God’s own original snob, my little Paisley princess — as though her mill-owning father had been a whit better than the Wilsons. But the little skinflint had collared a peerage in his declining years, you see, and she seemed to think that his coronet and cash, with my V.C. and military rank, to say nothing of her own occasional intimacy with the Queen, raised us above the common herd. Which I guess they did, in an odd way — or if not above, apart at least. We ain’t top-drawer, but there’s no denying we’re different.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.229, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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A sneer or a sniff

. . . and this I'll say for them, there wasn't a sneer or a sniff at my tweeds, such as you'd get from Frogs or Dagoes or our own reptilia; Vienna wasn't only polite, it was downright friendly and hospitable, putting a glass in my hand, coaxing me to the buffet, inquiring after my journey, asking how long I'd been in town . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.186, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Vienna.

One degree more snobbish

Being a Scotch tradesman’s daughter, my darling was one degree more snobbish than a penniless Spanish duke, and in the days before we went north her condescension to her middle-class friends would have turned your stomach.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.19, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,snobbish, condescension.

Ain't such a thing

She, the little ninny, was all for it, giving him a dazzling smile and protesting he was too, too kind – this aged satyr who was old enough to be her father and had vice leering out of every wrinkle in his face. Of course, where climbing little snobs like Elspeth are concerned, there ain’t such a thing as an ugly peer of realm…

Flashman at the Charge, p.27, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,peer, ugly.