"Who?" asked the Kangaroo and Dot anxiously, together.

"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!"