la, plaintively.
"What has a Kangaroo got to do with your feeling cold? What have you
done with your fur?"

"I never had any," said Dot, "only these curls," and she touched her
little head.

"Then you ought to be black," argued the Koala. "You're not the right
colour. Only blacks have no fur, but what they steal from the proper
owners. Do you steal fur?" it asked in an anxious voice.

"How do they steal fur?" asked Dot.

The Koala looked very miserable, and spoke with horror. "They kill us
with spears, and tear off our skins and wear them, because their own
skins are no good."

"That's not stealing," said Dot; "that's killing;" and, although it
seemed very difficult to make the little Bear understand, she
explained: "Stealing is taking away another person's things; and when
a person is dead he hasn't anything belonging to him, so it's not
stealing to take what belonged to him before, because it isn't his any
longer--that is, if it doesn't belong to anyone else."

"You make my head feel empty," complained the Koala. "I'm sure you're
all wrong; for an animal's skin and fur is his own, and it's his life's
business to keep it whole. Everyone in the bush is trying to keep his
skin whole, all day long, and all night too. Good gracious! What is
the matter up there?"

A terrible hullabaloo between a pair of Opossums up a neighbouring gum
tree arrested the attention of both Dot and the Koala. Presently the
sounds of snarling, spitting, and screaming ended, and an Opossum
climbed out to the far end of a branch, where the moonlight shone on
his grey fur like silver. There he remained snapping and barking
disagreeable things to his mate, who climbed up to the topmost branch,
and snarled and growled back equally unpleasant remarks.

"Why don't you bring in gum leaves for to-morrow, instead of sleeping
all day and half the night too?" shouted the Opossum on the branch to
his wife. "You know I get hungry before daylight is over, and hate
going out in the light."

"Get them yourself, you lazy loon!" retorted the lady Opossum. "If you
disturb my dreams again this way, I'll make your fur fly."

"Take care!" barked back her husband, "or I'll bring you off that
branch pretty quickly."

"You'd better try!" sneered his wife. "Remember how I landed you into
the billabong the other night!"

The taunt was too much for the Opossum on the branch; he scuttled up
the tree to reach his mate, who sprang forward from her