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 Richard was like a child escaped from school, escaped from his necessity to be something and to do something. They had jogged past the palm trees and the grass of the gardens, and the blue wrens had cocked their preposterous tails. They jogged to the end of the promontory, under wild trees, and Richard looked at the two lobes of the harbour, blue water on either side, and another part of the town beyond.

"Now take us back to the cockatoos," he said to the cabby.

Richard loved the look of Australia, that marvellous soft flower-blue of the air, and the sombre grey of the earth, the foliage, the brown of the low rocks: like the dull pelts of kangaroos. It had a wonder and a far-awayess, even here in the heart of Sydney. All the shibboleths of mankind are so trumpery. Australia is outside everything.

"I couldn't exactly say," Jaz answered. "You've got a bit of an Australian look this morning about you," he added with a smile.

"I feel Australian. I feel a new creature. But what's the outcome?"

"Oh, you'll come back to caring, I should think: for the sake of having something to care about. That's what most of them do. They want to turn bushrangers for six months, and then they get frightened of themselves, and come back and want to be good citizens."

"Bushranger? But Australia's like an open door with the blue beyond. You just walk out of the world and into Australia. And it's just somewhere else. All those nations left behind in their schoolrooms, fussing. Let them fuss. This is Australia, where one can't care."

Jaz sat rather pale, and ten times more silent than ever.

"I expect you've got yourself to reckon with, ho matter where you are. That's why most Australians have to fuss about something—politics, or horse-racing, or football. Though a man can go empty in Australia, if he likes: as you've said yourself," replied he.

"Then I'll go empty," said Richard. "What makes you fuss with Kangaroo and Struthers, Jaz?"

"Me?" The smile was slow and pale. "Go into the middle of Australia and see how empty it is. You can't