And of course they did none of these
dreadful things, and everything was cleaned
and put away safe as quick as lightning, while
the hobbit was turning round and round in the
middle of the kitchen trying to see what they
were doing. Then they went back, and found
Thorin with his feet on the fender smoking a
pipe. He was blowing the most enormous
smoke-rings, and wherever he told one to go, it
went—up the chimney, or behind the clock on
the mantelpiece, or under the table, or round
and round the ceiling; but wherever it went it
was not quick enough to escape Gandalf. Pop!
he sent a smaller smoke-ring from his short
clay-pipe straight through each one of Thorin’s.
Then Gandalf’s smoke-ring would go green and
come back to hover over the wizard’s head. He
had a cloud of them about him already, and in
the dim light it made him look strange and
sorcerous. Bilbo stood still and watched—he
loved smoke-rings—and then he blushed to
think how proud he had been yesterday
morning of the smoke-rings he had sent up the
wind over The Hill.
“Now for some music!” said Thorin. “Bring
out the instruments!”
Kili and Fili rushed for their bags and
brought back little fiddles; Dori, Nori, and Ori
brought out flutes from somewhere inside their
coats; Bombur produced a drum from the hall;
Bifur and Bofur went out too, and came back
with clarinets that they had left among the
walking-sticks. Dwalin and Balin said: “Excuse
me, I left mine in the porch!” “Just bring mine in
with you!” said Thorin. They came back with
viols as big as themselves, and with Thorin’s
harp wrapped in a green cloth. It was a beautiful
golden harp, and when Thorin struck it the
music began all at once, so sudden and sweet
that Bilbo forgot everything else, and was swept
away into dark lands under strange moons, far
over The Water and very far from his hobbithole
under The Hill.
The dark came into the room from the little
window that opened in the side of The Hill; the
firelight flickered—it was April—and still they
played on, while the shadow of Gandalf’s beard
wagged against the wall.