MINERVA

I tell you?" "You--you--you did it on purpose," spluttered Piglet, as soon as he could speak again ... and then accidentally had another mouthful of lathery flannel. "That's right, dear, don't say anything," said Kanga, and in another minute Piglet was out of the bath, and being rubbed dry with a towel. "Now," said Kanga, "there's your medicine, and then bed." "W-w-what medicine?" said Piglet. "To make you grow big and strong, dear. You don't want to grow up small and weak like Piglet, do you? Well, then!" At that moment there was a knock at the door. "Come in," said Kanga, and in came Christopher Robin. "Christopher Robin, Christopher Robin!" cried Piglet. "Tell Kanga who I am! She keeps saying I'm Roo. I'm _not_ Roo, am I?" Christopher Robin looked at him very carefully, and shook his head. "You can't be Roo," he said, "because I've just seen Roo playing in Rabbit's house." "Well!" said Kanga. "Fancy that! Fancy my making a mistake like that." "There you are!" said Piglet. "I told you so. I'm Piglet." Christopher Robin shook his head again. "Oh, you're not Piglet," he said. "I know Piglet well, and he's _quite_ a different colour." Piglet began to say that this was because he had just had a bath, and then he thought that perhaps he wouldn't say that, and as he opened his mouth to say something else, Kanga slipped the medicine spoon in, and then patted him on the back and told him that it was really quite a nice taste when you got used to it. "I knew it wasn't Piglet," said Kanga. "I wonder who it can be." "Perhaps it's some relation of Pooh's," said Christopher Robin. "What about a nephew or an uncle or something?" Kanga agreed that this was probably what it was, and said that they would have to call it by some name. "I shall call it Pootel," said Christopher Robin. "Henry Pootel for short." And just when it was decided, Henry Pootel wriggled out of Kanga's arms and jumped to the ground. To his great joy Christopher Robin had left the door open. Never had Henry Pootel Piglet run so fast as he ran then, and he didn't stop running until he had got quite close to his house. But when he was a hundred yards away he stopped running, and rolled the rest of the way home, so as to get his own nice comfortable colour again.... So Kanga and Roo stayed in the Forest. And every Tuesday Roo spent the day with his great friend Rabbit, and every Tuesday Kanga spent the day with her great friend Pooh, teaching him to jump, and every Tuesday Piglet spent the day with his great friend Christopher Robin. So they were all happy again. CHAPTER VIII IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER ROBIN LEADS AN EXPOTITION TO THE NORTH POLE One fine day Pooh had stumped up to the top of the Forest to see if his friend Christopher Robin was interested in Bears at all. At breakfast that morning (a simple meal of marmalade spread lightly over a honeycomb or two) he had suddenly thought of a new song. It began like this: "_Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear._" When he had got as far as this, he scratched his head, and thought to himself "That's a very good start for a song, but what about the second line?" He tried singing "Ho," two or three times, but it didn't seem to help. "Perhaps it would be better," he thought, "if I sang Hi for the life of a Bear." So he sang it ... but it wasn't. "Very well,