Why, an early-morning milkman had left a big can of milk in front of a grocery store, and it was this milk—some of which had slopped out from the can—that Tamba had smelled.
“Well, here’s milk all right, that’s sure,” said Tamba to himself, as he sniffed around the can in the doorway of the store. “But how can I get it out? I can’t scratch or bite through this tin can. And, oh, how hungry I am! A good, big drink of milk would make me feel much better!”
Tamba walked up and down in front of the can. It stood in the dark corner of a sheltered doorway of a store on a main street, but at that hour of the morning, after the milkman had passed, hardly any one was ever out.
“I must have some of that milk!” thought the hungry Tamba. He pawed and clawed at the can, hoping he could find some way of getting it open, when, all of a sudden, he knocked the can right over. It fell to the sidewalk with a clatter and a bang, and the cover came off.
Out gushed the white milk, and some of it spilled right into the big, deep cover of the can itself. That was enough for Tamba. Here he had the milk, in a dish all ready for him to lap it up with his red tongue, and that is just what he did!
“My, but that’s good!” thought the tiger, as he drank all the milk out of the can cover. “I am having better luck than at first. There is even enough milk for that pig Squinty, if he should happen to come along.”
But of course Squinty was far away. Tamba lapped up all the milk from the can cover, and then he saw where a little puddle had formed in a hole in the sidewalk. Tamba took that milk, too, and then he felt better.
“Now to go down to the salt water and find my jungle,” he said to himself, as he licked up the last drops of milk.
So Tamba started off down the city streets once more, and because every one was in bed and asleep no one saw him.