It was a large garden, only half cultivated, with bushes, as big as summer-houses, of Marshal Niel roses, lime and orange trees, clumps of bamboos, and thickets of high grass. Then Rikki-tikki went out into the garden to see what was to be seen. He sat on all their laps one after the other, because every well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a house mongoose some day and have rooms to run about in and Rikki-tikki's mother (she used to live in the general's house at Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki what to do if ever he came across white men. If a snake came into the nursery now-"īut Teddy's mother wouldn't think of anything so awful.Įarly in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast in the veranda riding on Teddy's shoulder, and they gave him banana and some boiled egg. "Teddy's safer with that little beast than if he had a bloodhound to watch him. "He may bite the child." "He'll do no such thing," said the father. "I don't like that," said Teddy's mother. Teddy's mother and father came in, the last thing, to look at their boy, and Rikki-tikki was awake on the pillow. But he was a restless companion, because he had to get up and attend to every noise all through the night, and find out what made it. At nightfall he ran into Teddy's nursery to watch how kerosene lamps were lighted, and when Teddy went to bed Rikki-tikki climbed up too. He nearly drowned himself in the bath-tubs, put his nose into the ink on a writing table, and burned it on the end of the big man's cigar, for he climbed up in the big man's lap to see how writing was done. He spent all that day roaming over the house. "There are more things to find out about in this house," he said to himself, "than all my family could find out in all their lives. Rikki-tikki liked it immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the veranda and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. They gave him a little piece of raw meat. "If Teddy doesn't pick him up by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he'll run in and out of the house all day long. "All mongooses are like that," said her husband. "Good gracious," said Teddy's mother, "and that's a wild creature! I suppose he's so tame because we've been kind to him." Rikki-tikki looked down between the boy's collar and neck, snuffed at his ear, and climbed down to the floor, where he sat rubbing his nose. "Ouch! He's tickling under my chin," said Teddy. "Don't be frightened, Teddy," said his father. He looked at the cotton wool, decided that it was not good to eat, ran all round the table, sat up and put his fur in order, scratched himself, and jumped on the small boy's shoulder. The motto of all the mongoose family is "Run and find out," and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose. It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. "Now," said the big man (he was an Englishman who had just moved into the bungalow), "don't frighten him, and we'll see what he'll do." So they wrapped him in cotton wool, and warmed him over a little fire, and he opened his eyes and sneezed. They took him into the house, and a big man picked him up between his finger and thumb and said he was not dead but half choked. "No," said his mother, "let's take him in and dry him. When he revived, he was lying in the hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a small boy was saying, "Here's a dead mongoose. He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and clung to it till he lost his senses. One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down a roadside ditch. He could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry as he scuttled through the long grass was: "Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!" He could scratch himself anywhere he pleased with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink. He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. Darzee, the Tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting. This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Hear what little Red-Eye saith: "Nag, come up and dance with death!"Įye to eye and head to head,(Keep the measure, Nag.) This shall end when one is dead (At thy pleasure, Nag.) Turn for turn and twist for twist-(Run and hide thee, Nag.) Hah! The hooded Death has missed!(Woe betide thee, Nag!) At the hole where he went in Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin.
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