Page 192 - The Hobbit

They seized him quickly, in spite of their surprise. "Who are you? Are you the

dwarves' hobbit? What are you doing? How did you get so far past our sentinels?"
they asked one after another.
"I am Mr. Bilbo Baggins," he answered, "companion of Thorin, if you want to

know. I know your king well by sight, though perhaps he doesn't know me to look
at. But Bard will remember me, and it is Bard I particularly want to see."
"Indeed!" said they, "and what may be your business?"
"Whatever it is, it's my own, my good elves. But if you wish ever to get back

to your own woods from this cold cheerless place," he answered shivering, "you
will take me along quiet to a fire, where I can dry-and then you will let me speak
to your chiefs as quick as may be. I have only an hour or two to spare."

That is how it came about that some two hours after his escape from the Gate,
Bilbo was sitting beside a warm fire in front of a large tent, and there sat too,
gazing curiously at him, both the Elvenking and Bard. A hobbit in elvish armour,
partly wrapped in an old blanket, was something new to them.

"Really you know," Bilbo was saying in his best business manner, "things are
impossible. Personally I am tired of the whole affair. I wish I was back in the West
in my own home, where folk are more reasonable. But I have an interest in this

matter-one fourteenth share, to be precise, according to a letter, which fortunately
I believe I have kept." He drew from a pocket in his old jacket (which he still wore
over his mail), crumpled and much folded, Thorin's letter that had been put under
the clock on his mantelpiece in May!

"A share in the profits, mind you," he went on. "I am aware of that. Personally
I am only too ready to consider all your claims carefully, and deduct what is right
from the total before putting in my own claim. However you don't know Thorin
Oakenshield as well as I do now. I assure you, he is quite ready to sit on a heap of

gold and starve, as long as you sit here."
"Well, let him!" said Bard. "Such a fool deserves to starve."
"Quite so," said Bilbo. "I see your point of view. At the same time winter is
coming on fast. Before long you will be having snow and what not, and supplies

will be difficult – even for elves I imagine. Also there will be other difficulties.
You have not heard of Dain and the dwarves of the Iron Hills?"
"We have, a long time ago; but what has he got to do with us?" asked the king.

"I thought as much. I see I have some information you have not got. Dain, I
may tell you, is now less than two days' march off, and has at least five hundred
grim dwarves with him – a good many of them have had experience in the