‘Your hands are five-branded flames—
Noli me tangere.’
Of course you had to come.”
“Well, here I am, anyhow,” said Somers.
“You are. You are!” shouted the other, and Somers was quite scared. Then Kangaroo laughed again. “Get up,” he said. “Stand up and let me look at you.”
The two men stood facing one another: Kangaroo large, with his full stomach and his face hulking down, and his queer, glaring eyes; Somers slight and aloof-looking. Cooley eyed him up and down.
“A little bit of a fellow—too delicate for rough me,” he said, then started quoting again:
“‘Your hands are five-branded flames—
Noli me tangere.’
I’ve got fat and bulky on all the poetry I never wrote. How do you do, Mr Somers? How do you like Australia, and its national animal, the kangaroo?” Again he smiled with the sudden glow of warmth in his dark eyes, startling and wonderful.
“Australia is a weird country, and it’s national animal is beyond me,” Somers said, smiling rather palely.
“Oh no, it isn’t. You’ll be patting it on the back as soon as you’ve taken your hands out of your pockets.”