"I'd sooner it was yours than Eeyore's," said Piglet.
"So would I," said Pooh.
"H—hup!" said Roo again.
"AS—I—WAS—SAYING," said Eeyore loudly and sternly, "as I was saying
when I was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that——"
"Here it is!" cried Christopher Robin excitedly. "Pass it down to silly
old Pooh. It's for Pooh."
"For Pooh?" said Eeyore.
"Of course it is. The best bear in all the world."
"I might have known," said Eeyore. "After all, one can't complain. I
have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last
week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said 'Bother!'
The Social Round. Always something going on."


Nobody was listening, for they were all saying "Open it, Pooh," "What is
it, Pooh?" "I know what it is," "No, you don't" and other helpful
remarks of this sort. And of course Pooh was opening it as quickly as
ever he could, but without cutting the string, because you never know
when a bit of string might be Useful. At last it was undone.
When Pooh saw what it was, he nearly fell down, he was so pleased. It
was a Special Pencil Case. There were pencils in it marked "B" for Bear,
and pencils marked "HB" for Helping Bear, and pencils marked "BB" for
Brave Bear. There was a knife for sharpening the pencils, and
india-rubber for rubbing out anything which you had spelt wrong, and a
ruler for ruling lines for the words to walk on, and inches marked on
the ruler in case you wanted to know how many inches anything was, and
Blue Pencils and Red Pencils and Green Pencils for saying special things
in blue and red and green. And all these lovely things were in little
pockets of their own in a Special Case which shut with a click when you
clicked it. And they were all for Pooh.
"Oh!" said Pooh.
"Oh, Pooh!" said everybody else except Eeyore.
"Thank-you," growled Pooh.
But Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing business. Pencils and
what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it."