out 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
thing,' said the father. 'Teddy's safer with that little beast than
if he had a bloodhound to watch him. If a snake came into the nursery
now----'

But Teddy's mother wouldn't think of anything so awful.

Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast-in the
verandah riding on Teddy's shoulder, and they gave him banana and
some boiled egg; and he sat on all their laps one after the other,
because every well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a
house-mongoose some day and have rooms to run about in, and
Rikki-tikki's mother (she used to live in the General's house at
Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki what to do if ever he came across
white men.

Then Rikki-tikki went out into the garden to see what was to be seen.
It was a large garden, only half cultivated, with bushes as big as
summer-houses of Marshal Niel roses, lime and orange trees, clumps of
bamboos, and thickets of high grass. Rikki-tikki licked his lips.
'This is a splendid hunting-ground,' he said, and his tail grew
bottle-brushy at the thought of it, and he scuttled up and down the
garden, snuffing here and there till he heard very sorrowful voices
in a thorn-bush.

It was Darzee, the tailor-bird, and his wife. They had made a
beautiful nest by pulling two big leaves together and stitching them
up the edges with fibres, and had filled the hollow with cotton and
downy fluff. The nest swayed to and fro, as they sat on the rim and
cried.

'What is the matter?' asked Rikki-tikki.

'We are very miserable,' said Darzee. 'One of our babies fell out of
the nest yesterday, and Nag ate him.'

'H'm!