"I didn't bounce, I coughed," said Tigger crossly.
"Bouncy or coffy, it's all the same at the bottom of the river."
"Well," said Rabbit, "all I can say Is-well, here's Christopher Robin, so he can say it."
Christopher Robin came down from the Forest to the bridge, feeling all sunny and careless, and just as if twice nineteen didn't matter a bit, as it didn't on such a happy afternoon, and he thought that if he stood on the bottom rail of the bridge, and leant over, and watched the river slipping slowly away beneath him, then he would suddenly know everything that there was to be known, and he would be able to tell Pooh, who wasn't quite sure about some of it. Rut when he got to the bridge and saw all the animals there, then he knew that it wasn't that kind of afternoon, but the other kind, when you wanted to do something.
"It's like this, Christopher Robin," began Rabbit. "Tigger …"
"No, I didn't," said Tigger.
"Well, anyhow, there I was," said Eeyore.
"But I don't think he meant to," said Pooh.
"He just is bouncy," said Piglet, "and he can't help it."
"Try bouncing me, Tigger," said Roo eagerly. "Eeyore, Tigger's going to try me. Piglet, do you think …"
"Yes, yes," said Rabbit, "we don't all want to speak at once. The point is, what does Christopher Robin think about it?"
"All I did was I coughed," said Tigger.
"He bounced," said Eeyore.
"Well, I sort of boffed," said Tigger.
"Hush!" said Rabbit, holding up his paw what does Christopher Robin think about it all? That's the point."
"Well," said Christopher Robin, not quite sure what it was all about, "I think …"
"Yes?" said everybody.
"I think we all ought to play Poohsticks.!"
So they did. And Eeyore, who had never played it before, won more times than anybody else; and Roo fell in twice, the first time by accident and the second time on purpose, because he suddenly saw Kanga coming from the Forest, and he knew he'd have to go to bed anyhow. So then Rabbit said he'd go with them; and Tigger and Eeyore went off together, because Eeyore wanted to tell Tigger How to Win at Poohsticks, which you do by letting your stick drop in a twitchy sort of way, if you understand what I mean, Tigger; and Christopher Robin and Pooh and Piglet were left on the bridge by themselves.
For a long time they looked at the river beneath them, saying nothing, and the river said nothing too, for it felt very quiet and peaceful on this summer afternoon.
"Tigger is all right really," said Piglet lazily.
"Of course he is," said Christopher Robin.
"Everybody is really," said Pooh. "That's what I think," said Pooh. "But I don't suppose I'm right," he said.
"Of course you are," said Christopher Robin.
Chapter VII.
In which Tigger is unbounced
ONE day Rabbit and Piglet were sitting outside Pooh's front door listening to Rabbit, and Pooh was sitting with them. It was a drowsy summer afternoon, and the Forest was full of gentle sounds, which all seemed to be saying to Pooh, "Don't listen to Rabbit, listen to me." So he got into a comfortable position for not listening to Rabbit, and from time to time he opened his eyes to say "Ah!" and then closed them again to say "True," and from time to time Rabbit said, "You see what I mean, Piglet " very earnestly, and Piglet nodded earnestly to show that he did.
"In fact," said Rabbit, coming to the end of it at last, "Tigger's getting so Bouncy nowadays that it's time we taught him a lesson. Don't you think so, Piglet?"
Piglet said that Tigger was very Bouncy, and that if they could think of a way of unbouncing him, it would be a Very Good Idea. "Just what I feel," said Rabbit. "What do you say, Pooh?"
Pooh opened his eyes with a jerk and said, "Extremely."
"Extremely what?" asked Rabbit.
"What you were saying," said Pooh. "Undoubtably."
Piglet gave Pooh a stiffening sort of nudge, and Pooh, who felt more and more that he was somewhere else, got up slowly and began to look for himself.
"But how shall we do it?" asked Piglet. "What sort of a lesson, Rabbit?"
"That's the point," said Rabbit.
The word "lesson" came back to Pooh as one he had heard before somewhere.
"There's a thing called Twy-stymes," he said. "Christopher Robin tried to teach it to me once, but it didn't."
"What didn't?" said Rabbit.
"Didn't what?" said Piglet.
Pooh shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "It just didn't. What are we talking about?"
"Pooh," said Piglet reproachfully, "haven't you been listening to what Rabbit was saying?"
"I listened, but I had a small piece of fluff in my ear. Could you say it again, please, Rabbit?"
Rabbit never minded saying things again, so he asked where he should begin from; and when Pooh had said from the moment when the fluff got in his ear, and Rabbit had asked when that was, and Pooh had said he didn't know because he hadn't heard properly, Piglet settled it all by saying that what they were trying to do was, they were just trying to think of a way to get the bounces out of Tigger, because however much you liked him, you couldn't deny it, he did bounce.
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
"There's too much of him," said Rabbit, "that's what it comes to."
Pooh tried to think, and all he could think of was something which didn't help at all. So he hummed it very quietly to himself.
"What was Pooh saying?" asked Rabbit. "Any good?"
"No," said Pooh sadly. "No good."
"Well, I've got an idea," said Rabbit, "and here it is. We take Tigger for a long explore, somewhere where he's never been, and we lose him there, and next morning we find him again, and-mark my words-he'll be a different Tigger altogether."
"Why?" said Pooh.
"Because he'll be a Humble Tigger. Because he'll be a Sad Tigger, a Melancholy Tigger, a Small and Sorry Tigger, an Oh-Rabbit-I-am-glad-to-see-you Tigger. That's why."
"Will he be glad to see me and Piglet, too?"
"Of course."
"That's good," said Pooh.
"I should hate him to go on being Sad," said Piglet doubtfully.
"Tiggers never go on being Sad," explained Rabbit. "They get over it with Astonishing Rapidity. I asked Owl, just to make sure, and he said that that's what they always get over it with. But if we can make Tigger feel Small and Sad just for five minutes, we shall have done a good deed."
"Would Christopher Robin think so?" asked Piglet.
"Yes," said Rabbit. "He'd say 'You've done a good deed, Piglet. I would have done it myself, only I happened to be doing something else. Thank you, Piglet.' And Pooh, of course."
Piglet felt very glad about this, and he saw at once that what they were going to do to Tigger was a good thing to do, and as Pooh and Rabbit were doing it with him, it was a thing which even a Very Small Animal could wake up in the morning and be comfortable about doing. So the only question was, where should they lose Tigger?