[Idriess, Ion L., 1937, Forty Fathoms Deep, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, Chapter 14]
CHAPTER XIV
A SLEEPER IN THE NIGHT
...
Routine had hardly quietened to a stormy normal when Long Jimmy James breezed in. Rubin greeted him darkly. "Why the storm clouds?" demanded James as he stretched his long frame in the most comfortable chair. "Any one would think there was a war on!"
"There soon will be a war," answered Rubin darkly; "a bigger war than you ever dreamed of."
"What on earth are you talking about?" "War. War-war-war-war!" shouted Rubin. "Rats!" replied James.
Rubin glowered, then shrugged. "All right, you'll see." "How's the pearls?" inquired James.
"I've got half a million tied up in pearls. The world does not want pearls!"
"What does it want?"
"Wool! There is going to be a war - mark my word, James - a war in two or three, perhaps four years."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" "I'm going to buy sheep. "
"What?"
"I'm going to buy a sheep station. Perhaps more than one."
"What do you know about sheep stations?"
"I'm surprised at you, James, asking me what I know about anything!" said Rubin scathingly. "You know as well as I do you can always buy brains!"
He could. And he bought his sheep stations. He had known what it was to be without a shilling in the world. Now he was buying stations to grow wool that would help clothe troops in a great war the possibility of which was denied by almost all the world.
...
