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 deep well, eh? Never mind, I'm as shallow as a pie-dish, and proud of it. Red, please." This to the Chink.

"That's why it's so nice knowing you," said Kangaroo.

"And you, of course, are a glass finger-bowl with a violet floating on it, you're so transparent," said Jack.

"I think that describes me beautifully. Mr Somers, help yourself to wine, that's the most comfortable. I hope you are going to write something for us. Australia is waiting for her Homer—or her Theocritus."

"Or even her Ally Sloper," said Jack, "if I may be permitted to be so old-fashioned."

"If I were but blind," said Somers, "I might have a shot at Australian Homerics."

"His eyes hurt him still, with looking at Sydney," said Jack.

"There certainly is enough of it to look at," said Kangaroo.

"In acreage," said Jack.

"Pity it spreads over so much ground," said Somers.

"Oh, every man his little lot, and an extended tram-service."

"In Rome," said Somers, "they piled up huge houses, vast, and stowed them away like grubs in a honey-comb."

"Who did the stowing? " asked Jack sarcastically.

"We don't like to have anybody overhead here," said Kangaroo. "We don't even care to go upstairs, because we are then one storey higher than our true, ground-floor selves."

"Prop us up on a dozen stumps, and we're cosy," said Jack. "Just a little above the earth level, and no higher, you know. Australians in their heart of hearts hate anything but a bungalow. They feel it's rock bottom, don't you see. None of your stair-climbing shams and upstairs importance."

"Good honest fellows," said Kangaroo, and it was impossible to know if he were joking or not.

"Till it comes to business," said Jack.

Kangaroo then started a discussion of the much-mooted and at the moment fashionable Theory of Relativity.

"Of course it's popular," said Jack. "It absolutely takes the wind out of anybody's sails who wants to say