'What's that? What, what?' said Henderson Hedgehog, and when they had repeated the question, he said, 'You must speak up, I'm a trifle deaf.'
'HAVE YOU SEEN A SINGED POSSUM?' shouted Bill.
'I can't hear you,' said Henderson.
'Have you seen a SINGED POSSUM?' roared Bill.
'To be sure,' said Henderson, 'but the turnips are backward.'
'Turnips be stewed,' yelled Bill in such a tremendous voice that he blew his own hat off. 'HAVE YOU SEEN A SINGED POSSUM?'
'Good season for wattle blossom,' said Henderson. 'Well, yes, but a very poor season for carrots.'
'A man might as well talk to a carrot as try an' get sense out of this runt of a feller,' said Bill, disgusted. 'Come an' see if we can't find someone that it won't bust a man's vocal cords gettin' information out of.'
They left Henderson to his horticulturing and walked on till they met a Parrot who was a Swagman, or a Swagman who was a Parrot. He must have been one or the other, if not both, for he had a bag and a swag, and a beak, and a billy, and a thundering bad temper into the bargain, for the moment Bill asked him if he had met a singed possum he shouted back—