“Not if Kangaroo can help it,” said Somers. “No!” William James flashed a quick look at him from his queer grey eyes. “What did you make of him then? Could you make him out?” “Not quite. I never met anyone like him. The wonder to me is, he seems to have as much spare time for entertaining and amusing his guests, as if he had no work at all on hand.” “Oh, that was just a special occasion. But he’s a funny sort of Saviour, isn’t he? Not much crown of thorns about him. Why, he’d look funny on a cross, what?” “He’s no intention of being put on one, I think,” said Somers stiffly. “Oh, I don’t know. If the wrong party got hold of him. There’s many mites in a pound of cheese, they say.” “Then I’ll toast my cheese.” “Ha-ha! Oh yes, I like a bit of toasted cheese myself--or a Welsh rabbit, as well as any man.” “But you don’t think they’d ever let him down, do you?--these Australians?” “No-o,” said William James. “I doubt if they’d ever let him down. But if he happened to _fall_ down, you know, they’d soon forget him.” “You don’t sound a very warm follower yourself.” “Oh, warm isn’t my way, in anything. I like to see what I’m about. I can see that Kangaroo’s a wonder. Oh yes, he’s a world wonder. And I’d rather be in with him than anybody, if it was only for the sake of the spree, you know. Bound to be a spree some time--and before long, I should say, things going as they are. I wouldn’t like to be left out of the fun.” “But you don’t feel any strong devotion to your leader?” “Why, no; I won’t say it’s exactly strong devotion. But I think he’s a world wonder. He’s not quite the _shape_ of a man that I should throw away my eyes for, that’s all I mean.” Again William James looked at Somers with that long, perhaps mocking little smile in his grey eyes. “I thought even his shape beautiful, when he talked to me.” “Oh yes, it’s wonderful what a spell he can cast over you. But I’m a stuggy fellow myself, maybe that’s how it is I can’t ever quite see him in the same light as the thin chaps do. But that’s just the looks of the thing. I can see there isn’t another man in the world like him, and I’d cross the seas to join in with him, if only for the fun of the thing.” “But what about the end of the fun?” asked Somers. “Oh, that I don’t know. And nobody does, for that matter.” “But surely if one believes--” “One believes a lot, and one believes very little, seems to me. Taking all in all, seems to me we live from hand to mouth, as far as beliefs go.” “You never _would_ believe,” said Somers, laughing. “Not till I was made to,” replied Jaz, twisting his face in his enigmatic smile. Somers looked at the thick, stocky, silent figure in the well-made dark clothes that didn’t in the least belong to him. There was something about him like a prisoner in prison uniform, in his town clothes--and something of that in his bearing. A stocky, silent, unconquerable prisoner. And in his imprisoned soul another kind of mystery, another sort of appeal.