clucking, down a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass
floating there, and clung to it till he lost his senses. 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. Let's have a funeral.'

'No,' said his mother; 'let's take him in and dry him. Perhaps he
isn't really dead.'

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; so they
wrapped him in cotton-wool, and warmed him and he opened his eyes and
sneezed.

'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.'

It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because
he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the
mongoose family is 'Run and find out'; and Rikki-tikki was a true
mongoose. 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.

'Don't be frightened, Teddy,' said his father. 'That's his way of
making friends.'

'Ouch! He's tickling under my chin,' said Teddy.

Rikki-tikki looked down between the boy's collar and neck, snuffed at