his ear, and climbed down to the floor, where he sat rubbing his
nose.

'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.'

'All mongooses are like that,' said her husband. '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. Let's give him something to eat.'

They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki tikki liked it
immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the verandah and
sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the
roots. Then he felt better.

'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. I
shall certainly stay and find out.'

He spent all that day roaming over the house. He nearly drowned
himself in the bath tubs, put his nose into the ink on a
writing-table, and burnt 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. At
nightfall he ran into Teddy's nursery to watch how the kerosene-lamps
were lighted, and when Teddy went to bed Rikki-tikki climbed up too;
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.
Teddy's mother and father came in, the last thing, to look at their
boy, and Rikki-tikki was awake on the pillow. 'I don't like that,'
said Teddy's mother; 'he may bite the child.' 'He'll do no such