Rabbit hurried on by the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood, feeling more important every minute, and soon he came to the tree where Christopher Robin lived. He knocked at the door, and he called out once or twice, and then he walked back a little way and put his paw up to keep the sun out, and called to the top of the tree, and then he turned all round and shouted “Hallo!” and “I say!” “It’s Rabbit!”—but nothing happened. Then he stopped and listened, and everything stopped and listened with him, and the Forest was very lone and still and peaceful in the sunshine, until suddenly a hundred miles above him a lark began to sing.
“Bother!” said Rabbit. “He’s gone out.”
He went back to the green front door, just to make sure, and he was turning away, feeling that his morning had got all spoilt, when he saw a piece of paper on the ground. And there was a pin in it, as if it had fallen off the door.
“Ha!” said Rabbit, feeling quite happy again. “Another notice!”
This is what it said:
Gon out Backson Bisy Backson.
C. R.
“Ha!” said Rabbit again. “I must tell the others.” And he hurried off importantly.
The nearest house was Owl’s, and to Owl’s House in the Hundred Acre Wood he made his way. He came to Owl’s door, and he knocked and he rang, and he rang and he knocked, and at last Owl’s head came out and said “Go away, I’m thinking—oh it’s you?” which was how he always began.
“Owl,” said Rabbit shortly, “you and I have brains. The others have fluff. If there is any thinking to be done in this Forest—and when I say thinking I mean thinking —you and I must do it.”
“Yes,” said Owl. “I was.”
“Read that.”
Owl took Christopher Robin’s notice from Rabbit and looked at it nervously. He could spell his own name Wol , and he could spell Tuesday so that you knew it wasn’t Wednesday, and he could read quite comfortably when you weren’t looking over his shoulder and saying “Well?” all the