Joseph Rudyard Kipling

The rea­son the beasts give among them­selves is that Man is the weak­est and most de­fense­less of all liv­ing things, and it is un­sports­man­like to touch him. They say too—and it is true—that man-eaters be­come mangy, and lose their teeth.

have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in my time,

have seen Mowgli among the Ban­dar-log. He bade me tell you. I watched. The Ban­dar-log have taken him be­yond the river to the Mon­key City—to the Cold Lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights, or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark time. That is my mes­sage. Good hunt­ing, all you be­low!”

called me speck­led frog.”
“

mon­keys called the place their city, and pre­tended to de­spise the Jun­gle Peo­ple be­cause they lived in the for­est. And yet they never knew what the build­ings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in cir­cles on the hall of the king’s coun­cil-cham­ber, and scratch for fleas and pre­tend to be men; or they would run in and out of the roof­less houses and col­lect pieces of plas­ter and old bricks i

It was the jackal—Tabaqui, the Dish-licker—and the wolves of In­dia de­spise Tabaqui be­cause he runs about mak­ing mis­chief, and telling tales, and eat­ing rags and pieces of leather from the vil­lage rub­bish-heaps. They are afraid of him too, be­cause Tabaqui, more than any­one else in the jun­gle, is apt to go mad, and then he for­gets that he was ever afraid of any­one, and runs through the for­est bit­ing ev­ery­thing in his way. Even the tiger hides when lit­tle Tabaqui goes mad, for mad­ness is the most dis­grace­ful thing that can over­take a wild crea­ture. We call it hy­dropho­bia, but they call it de­wa­nee—the mad­ness—and run.

I have no gift of words, but I speak the truth. Let him run with the Pack, and be en­tered with the oth­ers. I my­self will teach him.”

The whine had changed to a sort of hum­ming purr that seemed to roll from ev­ery quar­ter of the com­pass.

A black shadow dropped down into the cir­cle. It was Bagheera, the Black Pan­ther, inky black all over, but with the pan­ther mark­ings show­ing up in cer­tain lights like the pat­tern of wa­tered silk. Every­body knew Bagheera, and no­body cared to cross his path; for he was as cun­ning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buf­falo, and as reck­less as the wounded ele­phant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey drip­ping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.

“Who speaks for this cub?” said Akela. “Among the Free Peo­ple, who speaks?” There was no an­swer, and Mother Wolf got ready for what she knew would be her last fight, if things came to fight­ing.