Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/55

 "Maybe financial smash, and then hell to pay all round. Maybe, you know. We've got to think about it."

Somers watched him for some moments with serious eyes. Jack seemed as if he were a little bit drunk. Yet he had only drunk a glass of lager beer. He wasn't drunk. But his face had changed, it had a kind of eagerness, and his eyes glowed big. Strange, he seemed, as if in a slight ecstasy.

"It may be," said Somers slowly. "I am neither a financier nor a politician. It seems as if the next thing to come a cropper were capital: now there are no more kings to speak of. It may be the middle classes are coming smash—which is the same thing as finance—as capital. But also it may not be. I've given up trying to know."

"What will be will be, eh," said Jack with a smile.

"I suppose so, in this matter."

"Ay, but, look here, I believe it's right what you say. The middle classes are coming down. What do they sit on?—they sit on money, on capital. And this country is as good as bankrupt, so then what have they left to stand on?"

"They say most countries are really bankrupt. But if they agree among themselves to carry on, the word doesn't amount to much."

"Oh, but it does. It amounts to a hull of a lot, here in this country. If it ever came to the push, and the state was bankrupt, there'd be no holding New South Wales in."

"The state never will be bankrupt."

"Won't it? Won't there be a financial smash, a proper cave in, before we're much older? Won't there? We'll see. But look here, do you care if there is?"

"I don't know what it means, so I can't say. Theoretically I don't mind a bit if international finance goes bust: if it can go bust."

"Never mind about theoretically. You'd like to see the power of money, the power of capital, broke. Would you or wouldn't you?"

Somers watched the excited, handsome face opposite him, and answered slowly:

"Theoretically, yes. Actually, I really don't know."

"Oh to hell with your theoretically. Drown it. Speak like a man with some feeling in your guts. You either