Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/24

 "Come. Come and see."

This dragged the bear out of his den: Mr Somers, twisting sour smiles of graciousness on his pale, bearded face, crossed the verandah and advanced towards the division fence, on the other side of which stood his Australian neighbour in shirt-sleeves, with a comely young wife very near to him, whilst on this side stood Harriet with a bunch of pink and purple ragged dahlias, and an expression of joyous friendliness, which Somers knew to be false, upon her face.

"Look what Mrs Callcott has given me! Aren't they exquisite?" cried Harriet, rather exaggerated.

"Awfully nice," said Somers, bowing slightly to Mrs Callcott, who looked uneasy, and to Mr Callcott—otherwise Jack.

"Got here all right in the hansom, then?" said Jack.

Somers laughed—and he could be charming when he laughed—as he met the other man's eye.

"My wrist got tired, propping up the luggage all the way," he replied.

"Ay, there's not much waste ground in a hansom. You can't run up a spare bed in the parlour, so to speak. But it saved you five bob."

"Oh, at least ten, between me and a Sydney taxi driver."

"Yes, they'll do you down if they can—that is, if you let 'em. I have a motor-bike, so I can afford to let 'em get the wind up. Don't depend on 'em, you see. That's the point."

"It is, I'm afraid."

The two men looked at each other curiously. And Mrs Callcott looked at Somers with bright, brown, alert eyes, like a bird that has suddenly caught sight of something. A new sort of bird to her was this little man with a beard. He wasn't handsome and impressive like his wife. No, he was odd. But then he had a touch of something, the magic of the old world that she had never seen, the old culture, the old glamour. She thought that, because he had a beard and wore a little green house-jacket, he was probably a socialist.

The Somers now had neighbours: somewhat to the chagrin of Richard Lovat. He had come to this new country, the youngest country on the globe, to start a new