Winnie the Pooh

'The thing to do is as follows. First, Issue a Reward. Then-'

'Just a moment,' said Pooh, holding up his paw. 'What do we do to this-what you were saying? You sneezed just as you were going to tell me.'

'I didn't sneeze.'

'Yes, you did, Owl.'

'Excuse me, Pooh, I didn't. You can't sneeze without knowing it.'

'Well, you can't know it without something having been sneezed.'

'What I said was, 'First Issue a Reward'.'

'You're doing it again,' said Pooh sadly.

'A Reward!' said Owl very loudly. 'We write a notice to say that we will give a

large something to anybody who finds Eeyore's tail.'

'I see, I see,' said Pooh, nodding his head. 'Talking about large somethings,' he went on dreamily, 'I generally have a small something about now-about this time in the morning,' and he looked wistfully at the cupboard in the corner of

Owl's parlour; 'just a mouthful of condensed milk or whatnot, with perhaps a

lick of honey-'

'Well, then,' said Owl, 'we write out this notice, and we put it up all over the

Forest.'

'A lick of honey,' murmured Bear to himself, 'or-or not, as the case may be.'

And he gave a deep sigh, and tried very hard to listen to what Owl was saying.

But Owl went on and on, using longer and longer words, until at last he came back to where he started, and he explained that the person to write out this

notice was Christopher Robin.

'It was he who wrote the ones on my front door for me. Did you see them, Pooh?'

For some time now Pooh had been saying 'Yes' and 'No' in turn, with his eyes shut, to all that Owl was saying, and having said, 'Yes, yes,' last time, he said 'No, not at all,' now, without really knowing what Owl was talking about?

'Didn't you see them?' said Owl, a little surprised. 'Come and look at them

now.'

So they went outside. And Pooh looked at the knocker and the notice below it, and he looked at the bell-rope and the notice below it, and the more he looked at the bell-rope, the more he felt that he had seen something like it, somewhere else, sometime before.

'Handsome bell-rope, isn't it?' said Owl.

Pooh nodded.

'It reminds me of something,' he said, 'but I can't think what. Where did you

get it?'

'I just came across it in the Forest. It was hanging over a bush, and I thought at first somebody lived there, so I rang it, and nothing happened, and then I rang it again very loudly, and it came off in my hand, and as nobody seemed to

want it, I took it home, and'

'Owl,' said Pooh solemnly, 'you made a mistake. Somebody did want it.'

'Who?'

'Eeyore. My dear friend Eeyore. He was-he was fond of it.'

'Fond of it?'

'Attached to it,' said Winnie-the-Pooh sadly.