Butter the bogies

‘Very good inspector, I’m delighted to have met you. A very good night to you.’ And he made his exit with dignity. Mr Franklin, realising that he had nothing to stay for, followed, and was in time to see the General hurl his cane into the gutter.
    ‘Useless little squirt!’ he exclaimed. ‘Mind you, I needn’t have expected better. His father was a toad, and would have shopped his own mother for a sovereign.’ He glared at Mr Franklin. ‘But it’s always as well to butter the bogies*, you know. Fields, eh? I’ll send him a half-dozen of whisky presently — never know when he’ll come in handy.’


* See definition 5. (Speedicut)


Mr American, p.387, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, sovereign.

A wee crack

…and then the bearded man and I were alone in the silent gallery, with the powder smoke still wraithing in the sunbeams from the glass roof, and the blood wet on the planks. He pulled a flask from his pocket and handed it to me.
      “Tak’ your time,” says he, “and we’ll have a wee crack, you and I.” He was a nondescript fellow, in his shabby suit, but with an eye bright and unwinking as a bird’s questing over me and missing nothing, and while he wasn’t above middle height I guessed that anyone who ran into him would come away bruised.

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.163, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, flask.

Some imaginary trader

I don’t know who ran the first chest of opium into China but he was a great man in his way. It was as though some imaginary trader had put into the Forth with a cargo of Glenlivet to discover that the Scots had never heard of whisky.

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

Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, opium.

Best things

The best things I found however, were the port, and the claret, in which the Scotch have a nice taste, although I never took to whisky.





Flashman, p. 51, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Scotland, whisky.