“Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were, like the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now that brown husk of thine----” Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera put out a paddy paw and pulled him over backward into the water. “Worse and worse,” said the Black Panther, as the boy rose spluttering. “First Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut. Be careful that he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do.” “And what is that?” said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute, though that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle. “Break thy head,” said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again. “It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher,” said the bear, when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time. “Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to and fro makes a monkey-jest of those who have once been good hunters, and pulls the best of us by the whiskers for sport.” This was Shere Khan, the Lame Tiger, limping down to the water. He waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite to lap, growling: “The jungle has become a whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at me, Man-cub!” Mowgli looked--stared, rather--as insolently as he knew how, and in a minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. “Man-cub this, and Man-cub that,” he rumbled, going on with his drink, “the cub is neither man nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next season I shall have to beg his leave for a drink. Augrh!” “That may come, too,” said Bagheera, looking him steadily between the eyes. “That may come, too--Faugh, Shere Khan!--what new shame hast thou brought here?” The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and dark, oily streaks were floating from it down-stream. “Man!” said Shere Khan coolly, “I killed an hour since.” He went on purring and growling to himself. The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper went up that grew to a cry. “Man! Man! He has killed Man!” Then all looked towards Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear. Hathi never does anything till the time comes, and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long. “At such a season as this to kill Man! Was no other game afoot?” said Bagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the tainted water, and shaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so. “I killed for choice--not for food.” The horrified whisper began again, and Hathi’s watchful little white eye cocked itself in Shere Khan’s direction. “For choice,” Shere Khan drawled. “Now come I to drink and make me clean again. Is there any to forbid?” Bagheera’s back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind, but Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly. “Thy kill was from choice?” he asked; and when Hathi asks a question it is best to answer. “Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi.” Shere Khan spoke almost courteously.