"The bird you call Shepherd's Companion. Some of you call it Rickety Dick, or Willy Wagtail." Turning to the Kangaroo especially, it continued, "If you can bring yourself to speak to anything so obtrusive and gossiping, without any ancestry or manners whatever, you will be able to learn all you need from that bird. Humans and Wagtails fraternise together. They're both post-glacial."
"I knew you could advise me," said the Kangaroo gratefully.
"Oh! Platypus, how clever you are!" cried Dot, clapping her hands.
Directly Dot had spoken she saw that she had offended the queer little creature before her. It raised itself with an air of offended dignity that was unmistakable.
"The name Platypus is insulting," it remarked, looking at the child severely, "it means BROAD-FOOTED, a vulgar pseudonym which could only have emanated from the brutally coarse expressions of a Human. My name is Ornithorhyncus Paradoxus. Besides, even if my front feet can expand, they can also contract; see! as narrow and refined as a bird's claw. Observe, too, that my hind feet are narrow, and like a seal's fin, though it has been described as a mole's foot."
As the Platypus spoke, and thrust out its strangely different feet, the Kangaroo edged a little closer to Dot and whispered in her ear. "It's getting angry, and is beginning to use long words; do be careful what you say or it will be terrible!"
"I beg your pardon," said Dot; "I did not wish to hurt your feelings, Para—Pa—ra—dox—us."
"ORNITHORHYNCHUS Paradoxus, if you please," insisted the little creature. "How would you like it if your name was Jones-Smith-Jones, and I called you one Jones, or one Smith, and did not say both the Joneses and the Smiths? You have no idea how sensitive our race is. You Humans have no feelings at all compared with ours. Why, my fifth pair of nerves are larger than a man's! Humans get on my nerves dreadfully!" it ended in disgusted accents.
"She did not mean to hurt you," said the gentle Kangaroo, soothingly. "Is there anything we can do to make you feel comfortable again?"
"There is nothing you can do," Sighed the Platypus, now mournful and depressed. "I must sing. Only music can quiet my nerves. I will sing a little threnody composed by myself, about the good old days of this world before the Flood." And as it spoke, the Platypus moved into an upright position amongst the tussock grass, and after a little cough opened its bill to sing.