"I'm giving him a Useful Pot to Keep Things In, and I wanted to ask
you——"
"Is this it?" said Owl, taking it out of Pooh's paw.
"Yes, and I wanted to ask you——"
"Somebody has been keeping honey in it," said Owl.
"You can keep anything in it," said Pooh earnestly. "It's Very Useful
like that. And I wanted to ask you——"
"You ought to write 'A Happy Birthday' on it."
"That was what I wanted to ask you," said Pooh. "Because my spelling
is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the
wrong places. Would you write 'A Happy Birthday' on it for me?"
"It's a nice pot," said Owl, looking at it all round. "Couldn't I give
it too? From both of us?"
"No," said Pooh. "That would not be a good plan. Now I'll just wash it
first, and then you can write on it."
Well, he washed the pot out, and dried it, while Owl licked the end of
his pencil, and wondered how to spell "birthday."
"Can you read, Pooh?" he asked a little anxiously. "There's a notice
about knocking and ringing outside my door, which Christopher Robin
wrote. Could you read it?"
"Christopher Robin told me what it said, and then I could."
"Well, I'll tell you what this says, and then you'll be able to."
So Owl wrote ... and this is what he wrote:


HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY.
Pooh looked on admiringly.
"I'm just saying 'A Happy Birthday'," said Owl carelessly.
"It's a nice long one," said Pooh, very much impressed by it.
"Well, actually, of course, I'm saying 'A Very Happy Birthday with
love from Pooh.' Naturally it takes a good deal of pencil to say a long
thing like that."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
While all this was happening, Piglet had gone back to his own house to
get Eeyore's balloon. He held it very tightly against himself, so that
it shouldn't blow away, and he ran as fast as he could so as to get to
Eeyore before Pooh did; for he thought that he would like to be the
first one to give a present, just as if he had thought of it without