When the potter 's donkey slipped in the clay pit , Mowgli hauled it out by the tail , and helped to stack the pots for their journey to the market at Khanhiwara . That was very shocking , too , for the potter is a low-caste man , and his donkey is worse . When the priest scolded him , Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey too , and the priest told Messua 's husband that Mowgli had better be set to work as soon as possible ; and the village head-man told Mowgli that he would have to go out with the buffaloes next day , and herd them while they grazed . No one was more pleased than Mowgli ; and that night , because he had been appointed a servant of the village , as it were , he went off to a circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great fig-tree . It was the village club , and the head-man and the watchman and the barber , who knew all the gossip of the village , and old Buldeo , the village hunter , who had a Tower musket , met and smoked . The monkeys sat and talked in the upper branches , and there was a hole under the platform where a cobra lived , and he had his little platter of milk every night because he was sacred ; and the old men sat around the tree and talked , and pulled at the big huqas -LRB- the water-pipes -RRB- till far into the night . They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts ; and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of the ways of beasts in the jungle , till the eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bulged out of their heads . Most of the tales were about animals , for the jungle was always at their door . The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their crops , and now and again the tiger carried off a man at twilight , within sight of the village gates . Mowgli , who naturally knew something about what they were talking of , had to cover his face not to show that he was laughing , while Buldeo , the Tower musket across his knees , climbed on from one wonderful story to another , and Mowgli 's shoulders shook . Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried away Messua 's son was a ghost-tiger , and his body was inhabited by the ghost of a wicked , old money-lender , who had died some years ago . `` And I know that this is true , '' he said , `` because Purun Dass always limped from the blow that he got in a riot when his account books were burned , and the tiger that I speak of he limps , too , for the tracks of his pads are unequal . '' `` True , true , that must be the truth , '' said the gray-beards , nodding together . `` Are all these tales such cobwebs and moon talk ? '' said Mowgli . `` That tiger limps because he was born lame , as everyone knows . To talk of the soul of a money-lender in a beast that never had the courage of a jackal is child 's talk . '' Buldeo was speechless with surprise for a moment , and the head-man stared . `` Oho ! It is the jungle brat , is it ? ''
said XXXXX .
Buldeo Dass Khanhiwara brat ghost-tiger jackal money-lender night twilight watchman