Dot didn't understand what all these words meant, and looked at the Kangaroo for an explanation; but she saw that the Kangaroo didn't understand either, only she was trying to hide her ignorance by a calm appearance, while she nibbled the end of a long grass she held in her fore paw. But Dot noticed, by the slight trembling of the little black paw, that the Kangaroo was very nervous. She thought she would try and say something to please Platypus; so she asked, very kindly, if the bone ever hurt it. But this strange creature did not seem to notice the remark. Settling itself more comfortably amongst the grass, it muttered in calmer tones, "I trace my ancestry back to the oolite age. Where does man come in?"
"I don't know," said Dot.
"Of course you don't replied the Platypus, contemptuously, Humans are so ignorant! That's because they are so new. When they have existed a few more million years, they will be more like us of old families; they will respect quiet, exclusive living, like that of the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus, and will not be so inquisitive, pushing, and dangerous as now. The age will come when they will understand, and will cease to write books, and there will be peace for everyone."
The Kangaroo now thought it a good opportunity to change the subject, and gently introduced the topic of Dot's lost way, saying how she had found the little girl, and had taken care of her ever since.
The Platypus did not seem interested, and yawned more than once whilst the Kangaroo spoke.
"The question is," concluded the Kangaroo, "whom shall I ask to find it? Someone must know where it is."
"Of course," said the Platypus, yawning again, without so much as putting its web foot in front of its bill, which Dot thought very rude, or else very ancient manners. "Little Human," it said, "tell me what kind of bush creatures come about your burrow."
"We live in a cottage," she said, but seeing that the Platypus did not like to be corrected, and that the Kangaroo looked quite shocked at her doing so, she hurriedly described the creatures she had seen there. She said there were Crickets, Grasshoppers, Mice, Lizards, Swallows, Opossums, Flying Foxes, Kookooburras, Magpies, and Shepherd's Companions——
"Stop!" interrupted the Platypus, with a wave of its web foot; "that is the right one."
"Who?" asked the Kangaroo and Dot anxiously, together.