His eyes and the end
of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he
pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; 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!_'

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 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
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 ab