"Dear, dear," said Pooh, "I'm sorry about that. Let's have a look at
you."
So Eeyore stood there, gazing sadly at the ground, and Winnie-the-Pooh
walked all round him once.


"Why, what's happened to your tail?" he said in surprise.
"What has happened to it?" said Eeyore.
"It isn't there!"
"Are you sure?"
"Well, either a tail is there or it isn't there. You can't make a
mistake about it. And yours isn't there!"
"Then what is?"
"Nothing."


"Let's have a look," said Eeyore, and he turned slowly round to the
place where his tail had been a little while ago, and then, finding that
he couldn't catch it up, he turned round the other way, until he came
back to where he was at first, and then he put his head down and looked
between his front legs, and at last he said, with a long, sad sigh, "I
believe you're right."
"Of course I'm right," said Pooh.
"That Accounts for a Good Deal," said Eeyore gloomily. "It Explains
Everything. No Wonder."
"You must have left it somewhere," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
"Somebody must have taken it," said Eeyore. "How Like Them," he added,
after a long silence.


Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn't
quite know what. So he decided to do something helpful instead.
"Eeyore," he said solemnly, "I, Winnie-the-Pooh, will find your tail for
you."
"Thank you, Pooh," answered Eeyore. "You're a real friend," said he.
"Not like Some," he said.
So Winnie-the-Pooh went off to find Eeyore's tail.
It was a fine spring morning in the forest as he started out. Little
soft clouds played happily in a blue sky, skipping from time to time in
front of the sun as if they had come to put it out, and then sliding
away suddenly so that the next might have his turn. Through them and
between them the sun shone bravely; and a copse which had worn its firs
all the year round seemed old and dowdy now beside the new green lace
which the beeches had put on so prettily. Through copse and spinney