bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and throwing
sort-indeed he could do lots of things, besides blowing smoke-rings,
asking riddles and cooking, that I haven’t had time to tell you about.
There is no time now. While he was picking up stones, the spider had
reached Bombur, and soon he would have been dead. At that moment Bilbo
threw. The stone struck the spider plunk on the head, and it dropped
senseless off the tree, flop to the ground, with all its legs curled
up.
     The next stone went whizzing through a big web, snapping its cords,
and taking off the spider sitting in the middle of it, whack, dead.
After that there was a deal of commotion in the spider-colony, and
they forgot the dwarves for a bit, I can tell you. They could not see
Bilbo, but they could make a good guess at the direction from which
the stones were coming. As quick as lightning they came running and
swinging towards the hobbit, flinging out their long threads in all
directions, till the air seemed full of waving snares. Bilbo, however,
soon slipped away to a different place. The idea came to him to lead
the furious spiders further and further away from the dwarves, if he
could; to make them curious, excited and angry all at once. When about
fifty had gone off to the place where he had stood before, he threw