Alan Alexander Miln. The house at Pooh Corner -
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once."
Christopher Robin, who was thinking of something else,
said: "Where's Pooh?"--but Rabbit had gone. So he went into his
house and drew a picture of Pooh going a long walk at about
seven o'clock in the morning, and then he climbed to the top of
his tree and climbed down again, and then he wondered what Pooh
was doing, and went across the Forest to see.
It was not long before he came to the Gravel Pit, and
he looked down, and there were Pooh and Piglet, with their
backs to him, dreaming happily.
"Ho-ho!" said Christopher Robin loudly and suddenly.
Piglet jumped six inches in the air with Surprise and
Anxiety, but Pooh went on dreaming.
"It's the Heffalump!" thought Piglet nervously. "Now,
then!" He hummed in his throat a little, so that none of the
words should stick, and then, in one most delightfully easy
way, he said: "Tra-la-la, tra-la-la," as if he had just thought
of it. But he didn't look round, because if you look round and
see a Very Fierce Heffalump looking down at you, sometimes you
forget what you were going to say.
"Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um," said Christopher Robin in a
voice like Pooh's. Because Pooh had once invented a song which
went:
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.
So whenever Christopher Robin sings it, he always sings
it in a Pooh-voice, which seems to suit it better.
"He's said the wrong thing," thought Piglet anxiously.
"He ought to have said, 'Ho-ho!' again. Perhaps I had better
say it for him." And, as fiercely as he could, Piglet said:
"Ho-ho!"
"How did you get there, Piglet?" said Christopher Robin
in his ordinary voice.
"This is Terrible," thought Piglet. "First he talks in