“Oh, Lovat, don’t be so silly. You _know_ do speakyou don’t think your essays rubbish,” put in Harriet. “They’re about life, and democracy, and equality, and all that sort of thing,” Harriet explained. “Oh, yes?” said Jack. “I’d like to read some.” “Well,” hesitated Harriet. “He can lend you a volume--you’ve got some with you, haven’t you?” she added, turning to Somers. “I’ve got one,” admitted that individual, looking daggers at her. “Well, you’ll lend it to Mr Callcott, won’t you?” “If he wants it. But it will only bore him.” “I might rise up to it, you know,” said Jack laconically, “if I bring all my mental weight to bear on it.” Somers flushed, and laughed at the contradiction in metaphor. “It’s not the loftiness,” he said, rather amused. “It’s that people just don’t care to hear some things.” “Well, let me try,” said Jack. “We’re a new country--and we’re out to learn.” “That’s exactly what we’re not,” broke out William James, with a Cornish accent and a blurt of a laugh. “We’re out to show to everybody that we know everything there is to be known.” “That’s some of us,” said Jack. “And most of us,” said William James. “Have it your own way, boy. But let us speak for the minority. And there’s a minority that knows we’ve got to learn a big lesson--and that’s willing to learn it.” Again there was silence. The women seemed almost effaced. “There’s one thing,” thought Somers to himself, “when these Colonials _do_ speak seriously, they speak like men, not like babies.” He looked up at Jack. “It’s the world that’s got to learn a lesson,” he said. “Not only Australia.” His tone was acid and sinister. And he looked with his hard, pale blue eyes at Callcott. Callcott’s eyes, brown and less concentrated, less hard, looked back curiously at the other man. “Possibly it is,” he said. “But my job is Australia.” Somers watched him. Callcott had a pale, clean-shaven, lean face with close-shut lips. But his lips weren’t bitten in until they just formed a slit, as they so often are in Colonials. And his eyes had a touch of mystery, of aboriginal darkness. “Do you care very much for Australia?” said Somers, a little wistfully. “I believe I do,” said Jack. “But if I was out of a job like plenty of other unlucky diggers, I suppose I should care more about getting a job.” “But you care very much about your Australia?” “My Australia? Yes, I own about seven acres of it, all told. I suppose I care very much about that. I pay my taxes on it, all right.” “No, but the future of Australia.” “You’ll never see me on a platform shouting about it.” The Lovats said they must be going. “If you like to crowd in,” said Jack, “we can take you in the car. We can squeeze in Mr Somers in front, and there’ll be plenty of room for the others at the back, if Gladys sits on her Dad’s knee.” This time Somers accepted at once. He felt the halting refusals were becoming ridiculous.