`` If Teddy does n'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 veranda 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 burned 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 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 do n'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 would n't think of anything so awful . Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast in the veranda riding on Teddy 's shoulder , and they gave him banana and some boiled egg . 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 -LRB- she used to live in the general 's house at Segowlee -RRB- 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 , XXXXX bushes , as big as summer-houses , of Marshal Niel roses , lime and orange trees , clumps of bamboos , and thickets of high grass .
If after for into of on over than through with