Alan Alexander Milne

It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come.’

("What does 'under the name' mean?" asked Christopher Robin. "It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it."

But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the string of the balloon all that time that they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think – but I am not sure – that that is why he was always called Pooh.

‘Is that the end of the story?’ asked Christopher Robin.

‘That’s the end of that one. There are others.’

‘About Pooh and Me?’

‘And Piglet and Rabbit and all of you. Don’t you remember?’

‘I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget.’

‘That day when Pooh and Piglet tried to catch the Heffalump—’

‘They didn’t catch it, did they?’

‘No.’

‘Pooh couldn’t because he hasn’t any brain. Did I catch it?’

‘Well, that comes into the story.’

Christopher Robin nodded.

‘I do remember,’ he said, ‘only Pooh doesn’t very well, so that’s why he likes having it told to him again. Because then it’s a real story and not just a remembering.’

‘That’s just how I feel,’ I said.

Christopher Robin gave a deep sigh, picked his Bear up by the leg, and walked off to the door, trailing Pooh behind him. At the door he turned and said, ‘Coming to see me have my bath?’

‘I might,’ I said.

‘I didn’t hurt him when I shot him, did I?’

‘Not a bit.’