dead.'

The Coppersmith is a bird who makes a noise exactly like the beating
of a little hammer on a copper pot; and the reason he is always
making it is because he is the town-crier to every Indian garden, and
tells all the news to everybody who cares to listen. As Rikki-tikki
went up the path, he heard his 'attention' notes like a tiny
dinner-gong; and then the steady '_Ding-dong-lock!_ Nag is
dead--_dong!_ Nagaina is dead! _Ding-dong-tock!_' That set all the
birds in the garden singing, and the frogs croaking; for Nag and
Nagaina used to eat frogs as well as little birds.

When Rikki got to the house, Teddy and Teddy's mother (she looked
very white still, for she had been fainting) and Teddy's father
came out and almost cried over him; and that night he ate all
that was given him till he could I eat no more, and went to bed on
Teddy's shoulder, where Teddy's mother saw him when she came to look
late at night.

'He saved our lives and Teddy's life,' she said to her husband.
'Just think, he saved all our lives.'

Rikki-tikki woke up with a jump, for all the mongooses are light
sleepers.

'Oh, it's you,' said he. 'What are you bothering for? All the cobras
are dead; and if they weren't, I'm here.'

Rikki-tikki had a right to be proud of himself; but he did not grow
too proud, and he kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with