Nobody was listening, for they were all saying “Open it, Pooh,” “What is it, Pooh?” “I know what it is,” “No, you don’t” and other helpful remarks of this sort. And of course Pooh was opening it as quickly as ever he could, but without cutting the string, because you never know when a bit of string might be Useful. At last it was undone.

“AS—I—WAS—SAYING,” said Eeyore loudly and sternly, “as I was saying when I was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that—”

“Here it is!” cried Christopher Robin excitedly. “Pass it down to silly old Pooh. It’s for Pooh.”

“For Pooh?” said Eeyore.

“Of course it is. The best bear in all the world.”

“I might have known,” said Eeyore. “After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said ‘Bother!’ The Social Round. Always something going on.”

“What's Eeyore talking about?” Piglet whispered to Pooh.

“I don’t know,” said Pooh rather dolefully.

“I thought this was your party.”

“I thought it was once. But I suppose it isn’t.”

“I’d sooner it was yours than Eeyore’s,” said Piglet.

“So would I,” said Pooh.

“H—hup!” said Roo again.

While he was looking, Eeyore coughed in an impressive way and began to speak.

“Friends,” he said, “including oddments, it is a great pleasure, or perhaps I had better say it has been a pleasure so far, to see you at my party. What I did was nothing. Any of you—except Rabbit and Owl and Kanga—would have done the same. Oh, and Pooh. My remarks do not, of course, apply to Piglet and Roo, because they are too small. Any of you would have done the same. But it just happened to be Me. It was not, I need hardly say, with an idea of getting what Christopher Robin is looking for now”—and he put his front leg to his mouth and said in a loud whisper, “Try under the table” —“that I did what I did—but because I feel that we should all do what we can to help. I feel that we should all—”

“H—hup!” said Roo accidentally.

“Roo, dear!” said Kanga reproachfully.

“Was it me?” asked Roo, a little surprised.