Chapter I
     An Unexpected Party
     In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet
hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry,
bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a
hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
     It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a
shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a
tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without
smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided
with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats -
the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going
fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill - The Hill, as
all the people for many miles round called it - and many little round
doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No
going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries
(lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes),
kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the
same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going