Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned,
and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy
feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped
across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the
mouth of the cave where they all lived. 'Augrh!' said Father Wolf,
'it is time to hunt again'; and he was going to spring down hill when
a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined:
'Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves; and good luck and
strong white teeth go with the noble children, that they may never
forget the hungry in this world.'

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. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more
than any one else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he
forgets that he was ever afraid of any one, and runs through the
forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and 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.

'Enter, then, and look,' said Father Wolf, stiffly; 'but there is no
food here.'

'For a wolf, no,' said Tabaqui; 'but for so mean a person as myself a
dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the jackal
people], to pick and choose?' He scuttled to the back of the cave,
where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat
cracking the end merrily.