Couthie and slee

. . . I put my knee against his, and smiled ‘couthie and slee’, to fetch him, for he always had a fancy to me, you know, and men are so vain and silly, even an old dame like me can gowk them . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.259, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Suspicious agricultural activity

I’ve told you my score against Gordon-Cumming — a natural detestation of his supercilious vanity, his unconcealed dislike of me, above all the suspicion that he’d ploughed with my heifer . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.240, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Cf. Hollywood

…she had decided a career as a mistress was no great shakes, and had determined to try her luck on stage — she’d been born with a talent for mimicry, and being vicious, immoral, and vain, she had taken to the theatre like a pirate to plunder.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.201, Harper Collins, 1995.



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Comb my memoirs

A scoundrel I may be, but I ain’t an assassin, and you will comb my memoirs in vain for mention of Flashy as First Murderer. Oh, I’ve put away more than I can count, in the line of duty, from stark necessity, and once or twice from spite — de Gautet springs to mind, and the pandy I shot at Meerut — but they deserved it. Anyway, I don’t kill chaps I don’t know.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.194, Harper Collins, 1995.

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Cardinal folly

Master Ignatieff might be a clever and devilish dangerous man, but he had at least one of the besetting weaknesses of youth: he was as vain as an Etonian duke, and it led him to commit the cardinal folly in a diplomatic man. He talked too much.

Flashman at the Charge, p.207, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,vain, youth.

Snuff, anyone?

Lola was always vain of her bosom, and wore it all but outside her gown; I wished I had had a pinch of snuff to offer her.

Royal Flash, p.80, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,snuff.