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𝘜𝘬𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦'𝘴 "𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘯" 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘙𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘢 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘗𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘴: “𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘋𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘎𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘩...." [Main Logotype (Dark Green) | EMA]( [𝘥𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘦]( Whenever the military adopts a new technology... Timely investors could see massive returns. Spirit Aerosystems returned 1,242% to early investors... Aerojet Rocketdyne shot up 2.900%... Splunk soared 1,000%... [💁🏻‍♂️ Неrе's the next stock we think soars]( АІІ thе bеst, Simmy Adelman, Editor 𝐵𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡𝑠A wish that is likely to be granted enough in the mountains! said Elrond. But show me your map! He took it and gazed long at it, and he shook his head; for if he did not altoher approve of dwarves and their love of , he hated dragons and their cruel wickedness, and he grieved to remember the ruin of the town of Dale and its merry bells, and the burned s of the bright River Running. The moon was shining in a broad silver crescent. He held up the map and the white light shone through it. What is this? he said. T are moon-letters , beside the plain runes which say 'five feet high the door and three may walk abreast.' What are moon-letters? asked the hobbit full of excitement. He loved maps, as I have told you before; and he also liked runes and letters and cunning handwriting, though when he wrote himself it was a bit thin and spidery. Moon-letters are rune-letters, but you cannot see them, said Elrond, not when you look straight at them. They can be seen when the moon shines behind them, and what is more, with the more cunning sort it must be a moon of the same shape and season as the day when they were written. The dwarves invented them and wrote them with silver pens, as your s could tell you. These must have been written on a midsummer's eve in a crescent moon, a long while ago. What do they say? asked Gandalf and Thorin toher, a bit vexed perhaps that even Elrond should have found this out first, though rey t had not been a before, and t would not have been another until goodness ks when. Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, read Elrond, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the key-hole. Durin, Durin! said Thorin. He was the father of the fathers of the eldest race of Dwarves, the Longbeards, and my first ancestor: I am his heir. Then what is Durin's Day? asked Elrond. The first day of the dwarves' Year, said Thorin, is as should k the first, day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter. We still c it Durin's Day when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky toher. But this will not help us much, I fear, for it passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again. That remains to be seen, said Gandalf. Is t any more writing? None to be seen by this moon, said Elrond, and he gave the map back to Thorin; and then they went down to the water to see the elves dance and sing upon the midsummer's eve. The next morning was a midsummer's morning as fair and fresh as could be dreamed: blue sky and a cloud, and the sun dancing on the water. they rode away amid songs of farewell and good speed, with their hearts ready for more adventure, and with a kledge of the road they must follow over the Misty Mountains to the land beyond. T were many paths that led up into those mountains, and many passes over them. But most of the paths were cheats and deceptions and led or to bad ends; and most of the passes were infested by evil things and dreadful dangers. The dwarves and the hobbit, helped by the wise advice of Elrond and the kledge and memory of Gandalf, took the right road to the right pass. Long days after they had climbed out of the vey and left the Last ly House miles behind, they were still going up and up and up. It was a hard path and a dangerous path, a crooked way and a lonely and a long. they could look back over the lands they had left, laid out behind them far below. Far, far away in the West, w things were blue and faint, Bilbo k t lay his own country of safe and comfortable things, and his little hobbit-hole. He shivered. It was ting bitter cold up , and the wind came shrill among the rocks. Boulders, too, at times came goping down the mountain-sides, let loose by midday sun upon the s, and passed among them (which was lucky), or over their heads (which was alarming). The nights were comfortless and chill, and they did not dare to sing or talk too loud, for the echoes were uncanny, and the silence seemed to dislike being broken-except by the noise of water and the wail of wind and the crack of stone. The summer is ting on down below, thought Bilbo, and haymaking is going on and picnics. They will be harvesting and blackberrying, before we even begin to go down the other side at this . And the others were thinking equy gloomy thoughts, although when they had said good-bye to Elrond in the high hope of a midsummer morning, they' had spoken gaily of the passage of the mountains, and of riding swift across the lands beyond. They had thought of coming to the secret door in the Lonely Mountain, perhaps that very next first moon of Autumn- and perhaps it will be Durin's Day they had said. Gandalf had shaken his head and said nothing. Dwarves had not passed that way for many years, but Gandalf had, and he k how evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild, since the dragons had driven men from the lands, and the goblins had spread in secret after the battle of the Mines of Moria. Even the good plans of wise wizards like Gandalf and of good s like Elrond go astray sometimes when you are on dangerous adventures over the Edge of the Wild; and Gandalf was a wise enough wizard to k it. He k that something unexpected might happen, and he hardly dared to hope that they would pass without fearful adventure over those t mountains with lonely peaks and veys w no king ruled. They did not. was well, until one day they met a thunderstorm - more than a thunderstorm, a thunder-battle. You k how terrific a rey big thunderstorm can be down in the land and in a river-vey; especiy at times when two thunderstorms meet and clash. More terrible still are thunder and lightning in the mountains at night, when storms come up from East and West and make war. The lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks shiver, and crashes split the air and go rolling and tumbling into every cave and hollow; and the darkness is filled with overwhelming noise and sudden light. Bilbo had seen or imagined anything of the kind. They were high up in a narrow place, with a dreadful f into a dim vey at one side of them. T they were sheltering under a hanging rock for the night, and he lay beneath a blanket and shook from head to toe. When he peeped out in the lightning-flashes, he saw that across the vey the stone-giants were out and were hurling rocks at one another for a. game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness w they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang. Then came a wind and a rain, and the wind whipped the rain and the hail about in every direction, so that an overhanging rock was no protection at . they were ting drenched and their ponies were standing with their heads down and their tails between their legs, and some of them were whinnying with fright. They could hear the giants guffawing and shouting over the mountainsides. This 't do at ! said Thorin. If we don't blown or drowned, or struck by lightning, we sh be picked up by some giant and kicked sky-high for a footb. Well, if you k of anyw better, take us t! said Gandalf, who was feeling very grumpy, and was far from happy about the giants himself. The end of their argument was that they sent Fill and Kili to look for a better shelter. They had very sharp eyes, and being the youngest of the dwarves by some fifty years they usuy got these sort of jobs (when everybody could see that it was absolutely no use sending Bilbo). T is nothing like looking, if you want to find something (or so Thorin said to the young dwarves). You certainly usuy find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after. So it proved on this occasion. Fili and Kili came crawling back, holding on to the rocks in the wind. We have found a dry cave, they said, not far round the next corner; and ponies and could inside. Have you thoroughly explored it? said the wizard, who k that caves up in the mountains were seldom unoccupied. Yes, yes! they said, though everybody k they could not have been long about it; they had come back too quick. It isn't that big, and it does not go far back. That, of course, is the dangerous part about caves: you don't k how far they go back, sometimes, or w a passage behind may lead to, or what is waiting inside. But Fili and Kill's s seemed good enough. So they got up and prepared to move. The wind was howling and the thunder still growling, and they had a business ting themselves and their ponies along. Still it was not very far to go, and before long they came to a big rock standing out into the path. If you stepped behind, you found a low arch in the side of the mountain. T was just room to the ponies through with a squeeze, when they had been unpacked and unsaddled. As they passed under the arch, it was good to hear the wind and the rain outside instead of about them, and to feel safe from the giants and their rocks. But the wizard was taking no risks. He lit up his wand - as he did that day in Bilbo's dining-room that seemed so long ago, if you remember-, and by its light they explored the cave from end to end. It seemed quite a fair size, but not too large and mysterious. It had a dry floor and some comfortable nooks. At one end t was room for the ponies; and t they stood (mighty glad of the change) steaming, and champing in their nosebags. Oin and Gloin wanted to light a fire at the door to dry their clothes, but Gandalf would not hear of it. So they spread out their wet things on the floor, and got dry ones out of their bundles; then they made their blankets comfortable, got out their pipes and blew smoke rings, which Gandalf turned into different colours and set dancing up by the roof to amuse them. They talked and talked, and forgot about the storm, and discussed what each would do with his share of the treasure (when they got it, which at the moment did not seem so impossible); and so they dropped to sleep one by one. And that was the last time that they used the ponies, packages, baggages, tools and paraphernalia that they had brought with them. It turned out a good thing that night that they had brought little Bilbo with them, after . For somehow, he could not go to sleep for a long while; and when he did sleep, he had very nasty dreams. He dreamed that a crack in the w at the back of the cave got bigger and bigger, and ed wider and wider, and he was very afraid but could not c out or do anything but lie and look. Then he dreamed that the floor of the cave was giving way, and he was slipping-beginning to f down, down, goodness ks w to. At that he woke up with a horrible start, and found that part of his dream was true. A crack had ed at the back of the cave, and was already a wide passage. He was just in time to see the last of the ponies' tails disappearing into it. Of course he gave a very loud yell, as loud a yell as a hobbit can give, which is surprising for their size. Out jumped the goblins, big goblins, ugly-looking goblins, lots of goblins, before you could say rocks and blocks. T were six to each dwarf, at least, and two even for Bilbo; and they were grabbed and carried through the crack, before you could say tinder and flint. But not Gandalf. Bilbo's yell had done that much good. It had wakened him up wide in a splintered second, and when goblins came to grab him, t was a terrible flash like lightning in the cave, a smell like gunpowder, and several of them fell dead. The crack cd with a snap, and Bilbo and the dwarves were on the wrong side of it! W was Gandalf? Of that neither they nor the goblins had any idea, and the goblins did not wait to find out. It was deep, deep, dark, such as goblins that have taken to living in the heart of the mountains can see through. The passages t were crossed and tangled in directions, but the goblins k their way, as well as you do to the nearest post-ice and the way went down and down, and it was most horribly stuffy. The goblins were very rough, and pinched unmercifully, and chuckled and laughed in their horrible stony voices; and Bilbo was more unhappy even than when the troll had picked him up by his toes. He wished again and again for his nice bright hobbit-hole. Not for the last time. t came a glimmer of a red light before them. The goblins began to sing, or croak, keeping time with the flap of their flat feet on the stone, and shaking their prisoners as well. It sounded truly terrifying. The ws echoed to the clap, snap! and the crush, smash! and to the ugly laughter of their ho, ho! my lad! The general meaning of the song was too plain; for the goblins took out whips and whipped them with a swish, smack!, and set them running as as they could in front of them; and more than one of the dwarves were already yammering and bleating like anything, when they stumbled into a big cavern. It was lit by a red fire in the middle, and by torches along the ws, and it was full of goblins. They laughed and stamped and clapped their hands, when the dwarves (with poor little Bilbo at the back and nearest to the whips) came running in, while the goblin-drivers whooped and cracked their whips behind. The ponies were already t huddled in a corner; and t were the baggages and packages lying broken , and being rummaged by goblins, and smelt by goblins, and fingered by goblins, and quarreled over by goblins. I am afraid that was the last they ever saw of those excellent little ponies, including a jolly sturdy little white fellow that Elrond had lent to Gandalf, since his horse was not suitable for the mountain-paths. For goblins eat horses and ponies and donkeys (and other much more dreadful things), and they are always hungry. Just however the prisoners were thinking of themselves. The goblins chained their hands behind their backs and linked them toher in a line and dragged them to the far end of the cavern with little Bilbo tugging at the end of the row. T in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a tremendous goblin with a huge head, and armed goblins were standing round him carrying the axes and the bent swords that they use. goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usuy untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especiy the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is ced) so far. They did not hate dwarves especiy, no more than they hated everybody and everything, and particularly the orderly and prosperous; in some parts wicked dwarves had even made iances with them. But they had a special grudge against Thorin's people, because of the war which you have heard mentioned, but which does not come into this tale; and anyway goblins don't care who they catch, as long as it is done smart and secret, and the prisoners are not able to defend themselves. Who are these miserable persons? said the Goblin. Dwarves, and this! said one of the drivers, pulling at Bilbo's chain so that he fell forward onto his knees. We found them sheltering in our Front Porch. What do you mean by it? said the Goblin turning to Thorin. Up to no good, I'll warrant! Spying on the private business of my people, I guess! Thieves, I shouldn't to learn! Murderers and s of Elves, not unlikely! Come! What have you got to say? Thorin the dwarf at your service! he replied-it was merely a polite nothing. Of the things which you suspect and imagine we had no idea at . We sheltered from a storm in what seemed a convenient cave and unused; nothing was further from our thoughts than inconveniencing goblins in any way whatever. That was true enough! Urn! said the Goblin. So you say! Might I ask what you were doing up in the mountains at , and w you were coming from, and w you were going to? In fact I should like to k about you. Not that it willdo you much good, Thorin Oakenshield, I k too much about your folk already; but let's have the truth, or I will prepare something particularly uncomfortable ! We were on a journey to visit our relatives, our nephews and nieces, and first, second, and third cousins, and the other descendants of our grandfathers, who live on the East side of these truly hospitable mountains, said Thorin, not quite king what to say at once in a moment, when obviously the exact truth would not do at . He is a liar, O truly tremendous one! said one of the drivers. Several of our people were struck by lightning in the cave, when we invited these creatures to come below; and they are as dead as stones. Also he has not explained this! He held out the sword which Thorin had worn, the sword which came from the Trolls' lair. The Goblin gave a truly awful howl of rage when he looked at it, and his soldiers gnashed their teeth, clashed their shields, and stamped. They k the sword at once. It had killed hundreds of goblins in its time, when the fair elves of Gondolin hunted them in the hills or did battle before their ws. They had ced it Orcrist, Goblin-cr, but the goblins ced it simply Biter. They hated it and hated worse any one that carried it. Murderers' and elf-s! the Goblin shouted. Slash them! Beat them! Bite them! Gnash them! Take them away to dark holes full of snakes, and let them see the light again! He was in such a rage that he jumped his seat and himself rushed at Thorin with his mouth . Just at that moment the lights in the cavern went out, and the fire went poof! into a tower of blue glowing smoke, right up to the roof, that scattered piercing white sparks among the goblins. The yells and yammering, croaking, jibbering and jabbering; howls, growls and curses; shrieking and skriking, that followed were beyond description. Several hundred wild cats and wolves being roasted slowly alive toher would not have compared with it. The sparks were burning holes in the goblins, and the smoke that fell from the roof made the air too thick for even their eyes to see through. they were fing over one another and rolling in heaps on the floor, biting and kicking and fighting as if they had gone mad. Suddenly a sword flashed in its own light. Bilbo saw it go right through the Goblin as he stood dumbfounded in the middle of his rage. He fell dead, and the goblin soldiers fled before the sword shrieking into the darkness. The sword went back into its sheath. Follow me quick! said a voice fierce and quiet; and before Bilbo understood what had happened he was trotting along again, as as he could trot, at the end of the line, down more dark passages with the yells of the goblin-h growing fainter behind him. A pale light was leading them on. Quicker, quicker! said the voice. The torches will be relit. Half a minute! said Dori, who was at the back next to Bilbo, and a decent fellow. He made the hobbit scramble on his shoulders as best he could with his tied hands, and then they went at a run, with a clink-clink of chains, and many a stumble, since they had no hands to steady themselves with. Not for a long while did they , and by that time they must have been right down in the very mountain's heart. Then Gandalf lit up his wand. Of course it was Gandalf; but just then they were too busy to ask how he got t. He took out his sword again, and again it flashed in the dark by itself. It burned with a rage that made it gleam if goblins were about; it was bright as blue flame for delight in the killing of the lord of the cave. It made no trouble whatever of cutting through the goblin-chains and setting the prisoners as quickly as possible. This sword's was Glamdring the Foe-hammer, if you remember. The goblins just ced it Beater, and hated it worse than Biter if possible. Orcrist, too, had been saved; for Gandalf had brought it along as well, snatching it from one of the terrified guards. Gandalf thought of most things; and though he could not do everything, he could do a for s in a tight comer. Are we ? said he, handing his sword back to Thorin with a bow. Let me see: one-that's Thorin; two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven; w are Fili and Kili? they are, twelve, thirteen-and 's Mr. Baggins: fourteen! Well, well! it might be worse, and then again it might be a good better. No ponies, and no food, and no king quite w we are, and hordes of angry goblins just behind! On we go! On they went. Gandalf was quite right: they began to hear goblin noises and horrible cries far behind in the passages they had come through. That sent them on er than ever, and as poor Bilbo could not possibly go half as -for dwarves can roll along at a tremendous pace, I can tell you, when they have to-they took it in turn to carry him on their backs. Still goblins go er than dwarves, and these goblins k the way better (they had made the paths themselves), and were madly angry; so that do what they could the dwarves heard the cries and howls ting cr and cr. they could hear even the flap of the goblin feet, many many feet which seemed just round the last corner. The blink of red torches could be seen behind them in the tunnel they were following; and they were ting deadly tired. Why, O why did I ever my hobbit-hole! said poor Mr. Baggins bumping up and down on Bombur's back. Why, O why did I ever bring a wretched little hobbit on a treasure hunt! said poor Bombur, who was fat, and staggered along with the sweat dripping down his nose in his heat and terror. At this point Gandalf fell behind, and Thorin with him. They turned a sharp corner. About turn! he shouted. Draw your sword, Thorin! T was nothing else to be done; and the goblins did not like it. They came scurrying round the corner in full cry, and found Goblin-cr and Foe-hammer shining cold and bright right in their astonished eyes. The ones in front dropped their torches and gave one yell before they were killed. The ones behind yelled still more, and leaped back knocking over those that were running after them. Biter and Beater! they shrieked; and they were in confusion, and most of them were hustling back the way they had come. It was quite a long while before any of them dared to turn that comer. By that time the dwarves had gone on again, a long, long, way on into the dark tunnels of the goblins' realm. When the goblins discovered that, they put out their torches and they slipped on soft shoes, and they chose out their very quickest runners with the sharpest ears and eyes. These ran forward, as swift as weasels in the dark, and with hardly any more noise than bats. That is why neither Bilbo, nor the dwarves, nor even Gandalf heard them coming. Nor did they see them. But they were seen by the goblins that ran silently up behind, for Gandalf was letting his wand give out a faint light to help the dwarves as they went along. Quite suddenly Dori, at the back again carrying Bilbo, was grabbed from behind in the dark. He shouted and fell; and the hobbit rolled his shoulders into the blackness, bumped his head on hard rock, and remembered nothing more. When Bilbo ed his eyes, he dered if he had; for it was just as dark as with them shut. No one was anyw near him. Just imagine his fright! He could hear nothing, see nothing, and he could feel nothing except the stone of the floor. Very slowly he got up and groped about on fours, till he touched the w of the tunnel; but neither up nor down it could he find anything: nothing at , no sign of goblins, no sign of dwarves. His head was swimming, and he was far from certain even of the direction they had been going in when he had his f. He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not k it. He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment. He did not go much further, but sat down on the cold floor and gave himself up to complete miserableness, for a long while. He thought of himself frying bacon and eggs in his own kitchen at - for he could feel inside that it was high time for some meal or other; but that made him miserabler. He could not think what to do; nor could he think what had happened; or why he had been left behind; or why, if he had been left behind, the goblins had not caught him; or even why his head was so sore. The truth was he had been lying quiet, out of sight and out of mind, in a very dark corner for a long while. After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, and t was some tobacco in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches and he could not find any at , and that shattered his hopes completely. Just as well for him, as he agreed when he came to his senses. Goodness ks what the striking of matches and the smell of tobacco would have brought on him out of dark holes in that horrible place. Still at the moment he felt very crushed. But in slapping his pockets and feeling round himself for matches his hand came on the hilt of his little sword - the little dagger that he got from the trolls, and that he had quite forgotten; nor do the goblins seem to have noticed it, as he wore it inside his breeches. he drew it out. It shone pale and dim before his eyes. So it is an elvish blade, too, he thought; and goblins are not very near, and yet not far enough. But somehow he was comforted. It was rather splendid to be wearing a blade made in Gondolin for the goblin-wars of which so many songs had sung; and also he had noticed that such weapons made a impression on goblins that came upon them suddenly. Go back? he thought. No good at ! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? thing to do! On we go! So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the w, and his heart of a patter and a pitter. certainly Bilbo was in what is ced a tight place. But you must remember it was not quite so tight for him as it would have been for me or . Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people; and after if their holes are nice cheery places and properly aired, quite different from the tunnels of the goblins, still they are more used to tunnelling than we are, and they do not easily their sense of direction underground-not when their heads have recovered from being bumped. Also they can move very quietly, and hide easily, and recover derfully from fs and bruises, and they have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly heard or have forgotten long ago. I should not have liked to have been in Mr. Baggins' place, the same. The tunnel seemed to have no end. he k was that it was still going down pretty steadily and keeping in the same direction in spite of a twist and a turn or two. T were passages leading to the side every and then, as he k by the glimmer of his sword, or could feel with his hand on the w. Of these he took no notice, except to hurry past for fear of goblins or half-imagined dark things coming out of them. On and on he went, and down and down; and still he heard no sound of anything except the occasional whirr of a bat by his ears, which startled him at first, till it became too frequent to bother about. I do not k how long he kept on like this, hating to go on, not daring to , on, on, until he was tireder than tired. It seemed like the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond. Suddenly without any warning he trotted splash into water! Ugh! it was icy cold. That pulled him up sharp and short. He did not k whether it was just a pool in the path, or the edge of an underground stream that crossed the passage, or the brink of a deep dark subterranean lake. The sword was hardly shining at . He ped, and he could hear, when he listened hard, drops drip-drip-dripping from an unseen roof into the water below; but t seemed no other sort of sound. So it is a pool or a lake, and not an underground river, he thought. Still he did not dare to wade out into the darkness. He could not swim; and he thought, too, of nasty slimy things, with big bulging blind eyes, wriggling in the water. T are strange things living in the pools and lakes in the hearts of mountains: fish whose fathers swam in, goodness ks how many years ago, and swam out again, while their eyes grew bigger and bigger and bigger from trying to see in the blackness; also t are other things more slimy than fish. Even in the tunnels and caves the goblins have made for themselves t are other things living unbekn to them that have sneaked in from outside to lie up in the dark. Some of these caves, too, go back in their beginnings to ages before the goblins, who widened them and joined them up with passages, and the original owners are still t in odd comers, slinking and nosing about. Deep down by the dark water lived old Gollum, a sm slimy creature. I don't k w he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum - as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake; for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold. He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side, but a ripple did he make. Not he. He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking. He liked meat too. Goblin he thought good, when he could it; but he took care they found him out. He just throttled them from behind, if they ever came down alone anyw near the edge of the water, while he was prowling about. They very seldom did, for they had a feeling that something unpleasant was lurking down t, down at the very roots of the mountain. They had come on the lake, when they were tunnelling down long ago, and they found they could go no further; so t their road ended in that direction, and t was no reason to go that way-unless the Goblin sent them. Sometimes he took a fancy for fish from the lake, and sometimes neither goblin nor fish came back. Actuy Gollum lived on a slimy island of rock in the middle of the lake. He was watching Bilbo from the distance with his pale eyes like telescopes. Bilbo could not see him, but he was dering a lot about Bilbo, for he could see that he was no goblin at . Gollum got into his boat and shot from the island, while Bilbo was sitting on the brink altoher flummoxed and at the end of his way and his wits. Suddenly up came Gollum and whispered and hissed: Bless us and splash us, my precioussss! I guess it's a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it'd make us, gollum! And when he said gollum he made a horrible swowing noise in his throat. That is how he got his , though he always ced himself 'my precious.' The hobbit jumped nearly out of his skin when the hiss came in his ears, and he suddenly saw the pale eyes sticking out at him. Who are you? he said, thrusting his dagger in front of him. What iss he, my preciouss? whispered Gollum (who always spoke to himself through having anyone else to speak to). This is what he had come to find out, for he was not rey very hungry at the moment, curious; otherwise he would have grabbed first and whispered afterwards. I am Mr. Bilbo Baggins. I have lost the dwarves and I have lost the wizard, and I don't k w I am; and I don't want to k, if I can ,away. What's he got in his handses? said Gollum, looking at the sword, which he did not quite like. A sword, a blade which came out of Gondolin! Sssss, said Gollum, and became quite polite. Praps ye sits and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It like riddles, praps it does, does it? He was anxious to appear ly, at any for the moment, and until he found out more about the sword and the hobbit, whether he was quite alone rey, whether he was good to eat, and whether Gollum was rey hungry. Riddles were he could think of. Asking them, and sometimes guessing them, had been the game he had ever played with other funny creatures sitting in their holes in the long, long ago, before he lost his s and was driven away, alone, and crept down, down, into the dark under the mountains. Very well, said Bilbo, who was anxious to agree, until he found out more about the creature, whether he was quite alone, whether he was fierce or hungry, and whether he was a of the goblins. Half a moment! cried Bilbo, who was still thinking uncomfortably about eating. Fortunately he had once heard something rather like this before, and ting his wits back he thought of the answer. Wind, wind of course, he said, and he was so d that he made up one on the spot. 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