Page:The House at Pooh Corner (1961).pdf/69

 “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 Pooh’s voice, and then he talks in Christopher Robin’s voice, and he’s doing it so as to Unsettle me.” And being now Completely Unsettled, he said very quickly and squeakily: “This is a trap for Poohs, and I’m waiting to fall in it, ho-ho, what’s all this, and then I say ho-ho again.”

“What?” said Christopher Robin.

“A trap for ho-ho’s,” said Piglet huskily. “I’ve just made it, and I’m waiting for the ho-ho to come-come.”

How long Piglet would have gone on like this I don’t know, but at that moment Pooh woke up suddenly and decided that it was sixteen. So he got up; and as he turned his head so as to soothe himself in that awkward place in the middle of the back where something was tickling him, he saw Christopher Robin.

“Hallo!” he shouted joyfully.

“Hallo, Pooh.”

Piglet looked up, and looked away again. And he felt so Foolish and Uncomfortable that he had