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.

When they had all nearly eaten enough, Christopher Robin banged on the table with his spoon, and everybody stopped talking and was very silent, except Roo who was just finishing a loud attack of hiccups and trying to look as if it was one of Rabbit’s relations.

“This party,” said Christopher Robin, “is a party because of what someone did, and we all know who it was, and it’s his party, because of what he did, and I’ve got a present for him and here it is.” Then he felt about a little and whispered, “Where is it?”

“Hallo, Eeyore!” said Roo.

Eeyore nodded gloomily at him. “It will rain soon, you see if it doesn’t,” he said.

Roo looked to see if it didn’t, and it didn’t, so he said “Hallo, Owl!”—and Owl said “Hallo, my little fellow,” in a kindly way, and went on telling Christopher Robin about an accident which had nearly happened to a friend of his whom Christopher Robin didn’t know, and Kanga said to Roo, “Drink up your milk first, dear, and talk afterwards.” So Roo, who was drinking his milk, tried to say that he could do both at once . . . and had to be patted on the back and dried for quite a long time afterwards.

It was the first party to which Roo had ever been, and he was very excited. As soon as ever they had sat down he began to talk.

“Hallo, Pooh!” he squeaked.

“Hallo, Roo!” said Pooh.

Roo jumped up and down in his seat for a little while and then began again. “Hallo, Piglet!” he squeaked.

Piglet waved a paw at him, being too busy to say anything.