trouble my people in the forest and ‘ rouse the spiders with your riot
and clamour? After all the disturbance you have made I have a right to
know what brings you here, and if you will not tell me now, I will
keep you all in prison until you have learned sense and manners!” Then
he ordered the dwarves each to be put in a separate cell and to be
given food and drink, but not to be allowed to pass the doors of their
little prisons, until one at least of them was willing to tell him all
he wanted to know. But be did not tell them that Thorin was also a
prisoner with him. It was Bilbo who found that out.
     Poor Mr. Baggins - it was a weary long time that he lived in that
place all alone, and always in hiding, never daring to take off his
ring, hardly daring to sleep, even tucked away in the darkest and
remotest comers
     Magic shut the
     Companies of the Wood-elves, sometimes with the king at their head,
would from time to time ride out to hunt, or to other business in the
woods and in the lands to the East. Then if Bilbo was very nimble, he
could slip out just behind them; though it was a dangerous thing to
do. More than once he was nearly caught in the doors, as they clashed
together when the last elf passed, yet he did not dare to march among