"Isn't that fine?" shouted Winnie-the-Pooh down to you. "What do I look like?"

"You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon," you said.

"Not," said Pooh anxiously, "-not like a small black cloud in a blue sky?"

"Ah, well, perhaps from up here it looks different. And, as I say, you never can

There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so there he stayed. He could see the honey, he could smell the honey, but he couldn't quite reach the honey.

"I don't know. But something tells me that they're suspicious!"

"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."

There was another little silence, and then he called down to you again.

"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and down with it, and look up at me every now and then, and say 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.' I think, if you did that, it would help the deception which we are practising on these bees."

Well, you laughed to yourself, "Silly old Bear!" but you didn't say it aloud because you were so fond of him, and you went home for your umbrella.

"Oh, there you are!" called down Winnie-the-Pooh, as soon as you got back to the tree. "I was beginning to get anxious. I have discovered that the bees are now

"Yes, but wait a moment. We must be practical. The important bee to deceive is

"A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your umbrella, saying,

'Tut-tut, it looks like rain,' I shall do what I can by singing a little Cloud

So, while you walked up and down and wondered if it would rain, Winnie-the-Pooh sang this song:

The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. Some of them, indeed, left their nests and flew all round the cloud as it began the second verse of this song, and one bee sat down on the nose of the cloud for a moment, and then got

"Christopher-ow!-Robin," called out the cloud.

"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important decision. These

"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would make the wrong sort of

"Yes. So I think I shall come down."

Winnie-the-Pooh hadn't thought about this. If he let go of the string, he would fall-bump-and he didn't like the idea of that. So he thought for a long time, and then he said:

"Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with your gun. Have you got your