“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 ‘I’m It.’ Even the Lord Almighty is only relatively so and as it were.”
“How nice for us all,” laughed Somers. “It needed a Jew to lead us this last step in liberty.”
“Now we’re all little Its, chirping like so many molecules one with another,” said Jack, eyeing the roast duck with a shrewd gaze.
The luncheon passed frivolously. Somers was bored, but he had a shrewd suspicion that the other two men really enjoyed it. They sauntered into the study for coffee. It was a smallish room, with big, deep leather chairs of a delicate brown colour, and a thick, bluey oriental carpet. The walls even had an upper panelling of old embossed cordovan leather, a bluish colouring with gilt, old and tarnished away. It was evident that law pays, even in a new country.
Everybody waited for everybody to speak. Somers, of course, knew it was not his business to begin.
“The indiscreet Callcott told you about our Kangaroo clubs,” said the host, smiling faintly. Somers thought that surely he had Jewish blood in him. He stirred his little gold coffee-cup slowly.
“He gave me a very sketchy outline.”
“It interested you?”