“I can swim too,” said Roo proudly.

“Not round and round,” said Eeyore. “It’s much more difficult. I didn’t want to come swimming at all today,” he went on, revolving slowly. “But if, when in, I decide to practise a slight circular movement from right to left⁠—or perhaps I should say,” he added, as he got into another eddy, “from left to right, just as it happens to occur to me, it is nobody’s business but my own.”

There was a moment’s silence while everybody thought.

“I’ve got a sort of idea,” said Pooh at last, “but I don’t suppose it’s a very good one.”

“I don’t suppose it is either,” said Eeyore.

“Go on, Pooh,” said Rabbit. “Let’s have it.”

“Well, if we all threw stones and things into the river on one side of Eeyore, the stones would make waves, and the waves would wash him to the other side.”