‘Let me do it for you,’ said Pooh kindly. So he reached up and knocked at the door. ‘I have just seen Eeyore,’ he began, ‘and poor Eeyore is in a Very Sad Condition, because it’s his birthday, and nobody has taken any notice of it, and he’s very Gloomy – you know what Eeyore is – and there he was, and – What a long time whoever lives here is answering this door.’ And he knocked again.

‘But Pooh,’ said Piglet, ‘it’s your own house!’

‘Oh!’ said Pooh. ‘So it is,’ he said. ‘Well, let’s go in.’

So in they went. The first thing Pooh did was to go to the cupboard to see if he had quite a small jar of honey left; and he had, so he took it down.

‘I’m giving this to Eeyore,’ he explained, ‘as a present. What are you going to give?’

‘Couldn’t I give it too?’ said Piglet. ‘From both of us?’

‘No,’ said Pooh. ‘That would not be a good plan.’

‘All right, then, I’ll give him a balloon. I’ve got one left from my party. I’ll go and get it now, shall I?’

‘That, Piglet, is a very good idea. It is just what Eeyore wants to cheer him up. Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.’

So off Piglet trotted; and in the other direction went Pooh, with his jar of honey.

It was a warm day, and he had a long way to go. He hadn’t gone more than half-way when a sort of funny feeling began to creep all over him. It began at the tip of

his nose and trickled all through him and out at the soles of his feet. It was just as if somebody inside him were saying, ‘Now then, Pooh, time for a little something.’

‘Dear, dear,’ said Pooh, ‘I didn’t know it was as late as that.’ So he sat down and took the top off his jar of honey. ‘Lucky I brought this with me,’ he thought. ‘Many a bear going out on a warm day like this would never have thought of bringing a little something with him.’ And he began to eat.