"GL1" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol06)

time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits.
Tremendous outburst of approval.
I don't know half ofyou half as mell as I would like, and less than
half of you half as mell as you deserve.
No cheers this time: it was a bit too difficult. There was some
scattered clapping; but not all of them had yet had time to work it
out and see if it came to a compliment in the end.
Secondly, to celebrate my birthday, and the twentieth anniver-
sary of my return. No cheers; there was some uncomfortable
rustling.
Lastly, to make an Announcement. He said this so loudly and
suddenly that everyone sat up who could. I regret to announce
that - though, as I have said, 71 years is far too short a time among
you - this is the END. I am going. I am leaving after dinner. Good-
bye!
He stepped down. One hundred and forty-four flabbergasted
hobbits sat back speechless. Mr Proudfoot removed his feet from

the table. Mrs Proudfoot swallowed a large chocolate and choked.
Then there was complete silence for quite forty winks, until
suddenly every Baggins, Took, Brandybuck, Chubb, Grubb,
Burrowes, Bracegirdle, Boffin and Proudfoot began to talk at
once.
'The hobbit's mad. Always said so. Bad taste in jokes. Trying to
pull the fur off our toes (a hobbit idiom). Spoiling a good dinner.
Where's my handkerchief. Won't drink his health now. Shall
drink my own. Where's that bottle. Is he going to get married?
Not to anyone here tonight. Who would take him? Why good-bye?
Where is there to go to? What is he leaving?' And so on. At last old
Rory Brandybuck (8) (well-filled but still pretty bright) was heard to
shout: 'Where is he now, anyway? Where's Bilbo?'
There was not a sign of their host anywhere.

As a matter of fact Bilbo Baggins had disappeared silently and
unnoticed in the midst of all the talk. While he was speaking he
had already been fingering a small ring (9) in his trouser-pocket. As
he stepped down he had slipped it on - and he was never seen in
Hobbiton again.
When the carriages came for the guests there was no one to say
good-bye to. The carriages rolled away, one after another, filled
with full but oddly unsatisfied hobbits. Gardeners came (by
arrangement) and cleared away in wheelbarrows those that had
inadvertently remained behind, asleep or immoveable. Night
settled down and passed. The sun rose. The hobbits rose rather
later. Morning went on.

NOTES.

1. seventy-first emended from seventieth; but seventy-first in the text
of Bilbo's farewell speech as first written.