“Are you wise, Jaz? And am I childish?” Richard’s look suddenly changed also to mockery. “If you’re wise, Jaz, why do you wander round like a lost soul? Because you do. And what takes you to Struthers, if you belong to Kangaroo?”
“I’m secretary for the coal- and timber-merchants’ union,” said Jaz quietly.
They got out of the cab to look at the aviaries. Wonderful, brilliant-coloured little birds, the love-birds self-consciously smirking. “Hello!”—pronounced pure Australian-cockney: “Helleow!” “Hello! Hello!” “Hello Cocky! What yer want?” This in a more-than-human voice from a fine sulphur-crested cockatoo. “Hello Cocky!” His thick black tongue worked in his narrow mouth. So absolutely human the sound, and yet a bird’s. It was startling, and very funny. The two men talked to the cockatoos, fascinated and amused, for a quarter of an hour. The emu came prancing up, with his alert, large, sticking-out eyes and his whiskers. An alert gentleman, with the dark Australian eye. Very wide-awake, and yet far off in the past. And a remote, alert, sharp gentleness belonging to far past twilight ages, before enemies and iron weapons were perfected. A very remote, dirt-brown gentleman from the lost plains of time. The peacock rustling his blue fireworks seemed a sort of nouveau-riche in comparison.
Somers went in the evening of this memorable day to dine with Kangaroo. The other man was quiet, and seemed preoccupied.
“I went to Willie Struthers this morning,” Somers said.
Kangaroo looked at him sharply through his pince-nez. On the subtle face of Somers a small, wicked smile hovered like a half visible flame. But it was his alive, beautiful face. And his whole person seemed magnetic.
“Who took you there?” asked Kangaroo sharply.
“Jaz.”
“Jaz is a meddlesome-Patty. Well, and what then?”
“I think Willie is rather a terror. I wouldn’t like to have to spend my life with him. But he’s shrewd. Only I don’t like him physically—something thin and hairy and spiderish. I didn’t want to touch him. But he’s a force, he’s something.”