Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/126

 seemed to lean the sensitive tip of his long nose, hanging over him as he scrutinised him sharply through his eye-glasses, and approaching him with the front of his stomach.

"Very glad to see you," he said, in a voice half Australian, half official.

The luncheon was almost impressive: a round table with a huge bunch of violets in a queer old copper bowl, Queen Anne silver, a tablecloth with heavy point edging, Venetian wine-glases, red and white wine in Venetian wine-jugs, a Chinaman waiting at table, offering first a silver dish of hors d'uvres and a handsome crayfish with mayonnaise.

"Why," said Somers, equivocally, "I might be anywhere."

Kangaroo looked at him sharply. Somers noticed that when he sat down, his thighs in his dark grey, striped trousers were very thick, making his shoulders seem almost slender; but though his stomach was stout, it was firm.

"Then I hope you feel at home," said Kangaroo. "Because I am sure you are at home anywhere." And he helped himself to olives, putting one in his queer, pursed, thick-lipped mouth.

"For which reason I'm never at home, presumably."

"That may easily be the case. Will you take red or white wine?"

"White," said Somers, oblivious of the poised Chinaman.

"You have come to a homely country," said the Kangaroo, without the ghost of a smile.

"Certainly to a very hospitable one."

"We rarely lock our doors," said Kangaroo.

"Or anything else," said Jack. "Though of course we may slay you in the scullery if you say a word against us."

"I'm not going to be so indiscreet," said Somers.

"Leave the indiscretion to us. We believe in it. Indiscretion is the better part of valour. You agree, Kangaroo?" said Jack, smiling over his plate directly at his host.

"I don't think I'd care to see you turn discreet, boy," returned the other. "Though your quotation isn't new."

"Even a crystal-gazer can't gaze to the bottom of a