Page:The House at Pooh Corner (1961).pdf/62

 just hum to myself, as if I was waiting for something.”

“Then perhaps he'll say, ‘Ho-ho!’ again?” suggested Piglet anxiously.

“He will,” said Pooh.

Piglet’s ears twitched so quickly that he had to lean them against the side of the Trap to keep them quiet.

“He will say it again,” said Pooh, “and I shall go on humming. And that will Upset him. Because when you say ‘Ho-ho’ twice, in a gloating sort of way, and the other person only hums, you suddenly find, just as you begin to say it the third time—that—well, you find⸺”

“What?”

“That it isn’t,” said Pooh.

“Isn’t what?”

Pooh knew what he meant, but, being a Bear of Very Little Brain, couldn’t think of the words.

“Well, it just isn’t,” he said again.

“You mean it isn’t ho-ho-ish any more?” said Piglet hopefully.

Pooh looked at him admiringly and said that that was what he meant—if you went on humming all the time, because you couldn’t go on saying ‘“‘Ho-ho!” forever.

“But he'll say something else,”’ said Piglet.

“That’s just it. He’ll say: ‘What’s all this?’ And