Winnie the Pooh was stumping his way along the path to Owl’s house one morning about eleven-ish. Yesterday Owl had said he had a new batch of seed cakes, and Pooh thought it would be a Very Considerate Thing To Do if he stopped by to see how the cakes were doing. And if he happened to be there just when Owl might say “oh, Pooh, now that you’re here, won’t you try these seed cakes,” that would be Very Good Luck.
Pooh was in a bit of a hurry, and he was surprised when a voice from a tree said “Greetings, friend Gadzooks, but you appear to be something of a gastrosopher, sir!”
“Hullo?” said Pooh, looking around to see who it was.
“I mean no gaud,” said the voice, “I happen to be gravitationally emancipated. Look up here.”
Pooh looked up into the nearest tree, and sitting on a branch was a happy-looking bird with grayish-blue feathers.
“Oh,” said Pooh, “there you are. My name is Winnie the Pooh, and I’m on my way to Owl’s house. I hope he still has some seed cakes.”
“Ah, seed cakes,” said the bird, “one of my favorites. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Pooh. You may call me Galah. That is a cockatoo from Australia, you see. But it would be goatish to insist that I be called “Cockatoo from Australia,” and as I am a cockatoo but not a gowk, Galah is perfectly ‘greeable.”
“Very pleased to meet you,” said Pooh. “I was just on my way to Owl’s house, and I’m in a bit of a hurry, you know.”
“I believe I have already met your grandiloquent friend,” said Galah. “I endured his grandisonant oration for some time this morning. I thought at first that he and I shared a common granivorous orientation gastronomically, but in the course of conversation he informed me that many of his relatives are not of that disposition at all. Nevertheless he spoke in quite the gratulatory way of all of them, and shared a seed cake with me, gratis. A grand fellow, that Owl.”
“Er, yes,” said Pooh. “The seed cakes are why I wanted to visit Owl. And perhaps I should be going along to get there.”
“Granted,” said Galah, gravely. “That’s a good idea, Sir. I shouldn’t like to make you grum for missing a seed-cake or two; those cakes are fit for a gourmet and not grumous at all, which is often a fault one finds in seed-cakes. Come along, I shall accompany you as you go.”
Hearing this, Pooh happily stumped along the path, with Galah flitting from tree to tree above him. “It’s a pity I’m not a gumnivorous bird,” said Galah at one point, noticing that his feet were sticky from perching on a gummiferous tree. “This gum nearly gryes me to this branch.”
“Well,” said Pooh when he arrived at Owl’s house, “here I am. Do you want to come in with me, Galah?”
“No thank you,” said Galah, “I have already endured Owl’s guff this morning, and I have an appointment to meet my friend Guillemot; we’re going to listen to some gusli music together on the groyne. Guilllemot is a bit of a grinagog, you know; even my pal Grivet isn’t so happy. So I shall take my leave here. Enjoy the seed-cakes, The.” With that, Galah flew away.
Pooh wondered for a moment, then realized he had introduced himself to Galah as ‘Winnie the Pooh’, and Galah had thought ‘The’ had been one of his actual names. “Well,” said Pooh to himself, “Galah used quite a lot of words beginning with ‘g’. I wonder why?” Then he knocked on Owl’s door, hoping the seed-cakes would be goluptious. They were.
