But the instant he was taken out all his rage and grief were at an end. He would cuddle up in his master's arms, lay his head lovingly on his cheek and coo and crow away in deep delight.
Leaving the mongoose, we may take a look in upon some other four-footed creatures that make good pets. Among these are such as the chameleon, the odd lizard that has the power to take on a new color whenever it gets tired of the old one; the armadillo, which wears a coat of mail and can roll itself up into a ball that no teeth can bite into; the hedgehog, another little creature that rolls up into a ball with sharp spines sticking out on all sides; the porcupine, that does the same thing and has much longer spines; in fact, almost all kinds of small animals, even those we call house vermin, the rat and the mouse.
We might fancy that pet-lovers would draw a line at rats and mice, but these have often been tamed, at least the white rat and mouse, which some people like for their color. The rat makes a better pet than the mouse, for it is very quick-witted, while the mouse is apt to be dull. Among animal stories there is one we are told about a white rat that seems worth telling.
The owner of this rat found it to be clean, loving and very lively. Like all rats it had the habit of laying up a store of food for future use, and when it found a supply would never stop till it had carried it all away. It was funny to watch it. If a plate of biscuits was put upon the table with no one near by, it would carry them away, one at a time, till not a biscuit was left. They would all be taken to its nesting place, across the room, and laid away for future use.
If it got hold of a hunk of bread too heavy to carry up to its elevated nest, this did not stop its work. It would sit on the floor and gnaw the bread into small bits, carrying those up one at a time. It was fond of warming itself before a coal fire, and seemed to take the fancy that coal was a good thing to have, for it carried it off a piece at a time till it had a store of this hard stuff a foot wide and five or six inches deep.
Very likely many of you have read about how rats will carry off eggs, even taking them down stairs without an egg being broken. It takes two rats to do this, one passing the egg down to the other on the step below. They have even been seen to take eggs up stairs. One rat catches the egg between its fore-paws and its head, and gets up on its hind legs, passing it up to the other, who catches it in its fore-paws. Then they go up another step and keep at this till the top is reached. They are very fond of oil, and when they find bottles of oil have a cute way of their own to get it. First gnawing off the cover, the rat sticks its tail down into the oil, pulls it up well covered, and licks off the oil. Sometimes they take turns, each handing down its tail for another rat to lick. You may see from this that the rat is a very wide-awake little nuisance.