"You didn't really," whispered Piglet to Pooh, so as to comfort him.
"I didn't think I did," said Pooh anxiously.
"It's just Eeyore," said Piglet. "I thought your Idea was a very good Idea."
Pooh began to feel a little more comfortable, because when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it. And, anyhow, Eeyore was in the river, and now he wasn't, so he hadn't done any harm.
"How did you fall in, Eeyore?" asked Rabbit, as he dried him with Piglet's handkerchief.
"I didn't," said Eeyore.
"But how---"
"I was BOUNCED," said Eeyore.
"Oo," said Roo excitedly, "did somebody push you?"
"Somebody BOUNCED me. I was just thinking by the side of the river--thinking, if any of you know what that means, when I received a loud BOUNCE."
"Oh, Eeyore!" said everybody.
"Are you sure you didn't slip?" asked Rabbit wisely.
"Of course I slipped. If you're standing on the slippery bank of a river, and somebody BOUNCES you loudly from behind, you slip. What did you think I did?"
"But who did it?" asked Roo.
Eeyore didn't answer.
"I expect it was Tigger," said Piglet nervously.
"But, Eeyore," said Pooh, "was it a Joke, or an Accident? I mean---"
"I didn't stop to ask, Pooh. Even at the very bottom of the river I didn't stop to say to myself, 'Is this a Hearty Joke, or is it the Merest Accident?' I just floated to the surface, and said to myself, 'It's wet.' If you know what I mean." | 
