Going along, hugging his good fortune in this way, he came presently to a potter's yard, where the potter, leaving his wheel to spin round by itself, was trying to pacify his three little children, who were screaming and crying as if they would burst.
'My gracious!' cried the Rat, stopping his ears, 'what a noise!—do tell me what it is all about.'
'I suppose they are hungry,' replied the potter ruefully; 'their mother has gone to get flour in the bazaar, for there is none in the house. In the meantime I can neither work nor rest because of them.'
'Is that all!' answered the officious Rat; 'then I can help you. Take this dough, cook it quickly, and stop their mouths with food.'
The potter overwhelmed the Rat with thanks for his obliging kindness, and choosing out a nice well-burnt pipkin, insisted on his accepting it as a remembrance.
The Rat was delighted at the exchange, and though the pipkin was just a trifle awkward for him to manage, he succeeded after infinite trouble in balancing it on his head, and went away gingerly, tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink, down the road, with his tail over his arm for fear he should trip on it. And all the time he kept saying to himself, 'What a lucky fellow I am! and clever too! Such a hand at a bargain!'
By and by he came to where some neatherds were herding their cattle. One of them was milking a buffalo, and having no pail he used his shoes instead.
'Oh fie! oh fie!' cried the cleanly Rat, quite shocked at the sight.
'What a nasty dirty trick!—why don't you use a pail?'
'For the best of all reasons—we haven't got one!' growled the neatherd, who did not see why the Rat should put his finger in the pie.
'If that is all,' replied the dainty Rat, 'oblige me by using this pipkin, for I cannot bear dirt!'