for want of more ancestors through which to trace the causes
that led to Abel -- I mean Cain -- going on as he did.
What's the use or sense of it? You might argue away in any direction
for a million miles and a million years back into the past,
but you've got to come back to where you are if you wish to do
any good for yourself, or anyone else.

"Sometimes it takes you a long while to get back to where you are --
sometimes you never do it. Why, when those controversies were started
in the `Bulletin' about the kangaroos and other things, I thought I knew
something about the bush. Now I'm damned if I'm sure I could tell
a kangaroo from a wombat.

"Trying to find out things is the cause of all the work and trouble
in this world. It was Eve's fault in the first place -- or Adam's, rather,
because it might be argued that he should have been master.
Some men are too lazy to be masters in their own homes,
and run the show properly; some are too careless, and some too drunk
most of their time, and some too weak. If Adam and Eve
hadn't tried to find out things there'd have been no toil and trouble
in the world to-day; there'd have been no bloated capitalists,
and no horny-handed working men, and no politics, no freetrade and protection
-- and no clothes. The woman next door wouldn't be able to pick holes
in your wife's washing on the line. We'd have been all running about
in a big Garden of Eden with nothing on, and nothing to do except loaf,
and make love, and lark, and laugh, and play practical jokes on each other."

Joe grinned.

"That would have been glorious. Wouldn't it, Joe? There'd have been