dy'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
tooth and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its
head inside the walls.

DARZEE'S CHAUNT.

(SUNG IN HONOUR OF RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI.)

Singer and tailor am I--
Doubled the joys that I know--
Proud of my lilt through the sky,
Proud of the house that I sew--
Over and under, so weave I my music--so weave I the house that I sew.

Sing to your fledglings again,
Mother, oh lift up your head!
Evil that plagued us is slain,
Death in the garden lies dead.
Terror that hid in the roses is impotent--flung on the dung-hill
and dead!

Who hath delivered us, who?
Tell me his nest and his name.
Rikki, the valiant, the true,
Tikki, with eyeballs of flame,
Rik-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the hunter with eyeballs of flame.

Give him the Thanks of the Birds,
Bowing with tail-feathers spread!
Praise him with nightingale words--
Nay, I will praise him instead.
Hear! I will sing you the praise of the bottle-tailed Rikki, with
eyeballs of red!

(_Here Rikki-tikki interrupted, and the rest of the song is lost_.)

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR PART I

I have done one braver thing
Than all the worthies did;
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is to keep that hid.
THE UNDERTAKING.

'Is it officially declared yet?'

'They've gone as far as to admit extreme local scarcity, and they've
started relief-works in one or two districts, the paper says.'

'That means it will be declared as soon as they can make sure of the
men and the rolling-stock. Shouldn't wonder if it were as bad as the
Big Famine.'

'Can't be,' said Scott, turning a little in the long cane chair.
'We've had fifteen-anna crops in the north, and Bombay and Bengal
report more than they know what to do with. They'll be able