Three Months Later

The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I sleep but little.
It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its four legs
now. Yet it differs from the other four-legged animals in that
its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the
main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air,
and this is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its
method of travelling shows that it is not of our breed. The short
front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo
family, but it is a marked variation of the species, since the
true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. Still, it is a
curious and interesting variety, and has not been catalogued before.
As I discovered it, I have felt justified in securing the credit
of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and hence have called
it Kangaroorum Adamiensis.... It must have been a young one
when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five
times as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented is able
to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it made
at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has the contrary
effect. For this reason I discontinued the system. She reconciles
it by persuasion, and by giving it things which she had previously
told it she wouldn't give it. As already observed, I was not at
home when it first came, and she told me she found it in the woods.
It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it must be so,
for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find another
one to add to my collection, and for this one to play with; for
surely then it would be quieter, and we could tame it more easily.
But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no
tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot help itself;