The Hobbit

went through the trees in the
     pitch dark.
    Suddenly the red light shone out very bright through the tree-trunks not far ahead.
    “Now it is the burglar’s turn,” they said, meaning Bilbo. “You must go on and find out all about that light, and what it is for, and if all is perfectly safe and canny,” said Thorin to the hobbit. “Now scuttle off, and come
     back quick, if all is well. If not, come back if you can! If you can’t, hoot twice like a barn-owl and once like a screech-owl,
     and we will do what we can.”
    Off Bilbo had to go, before he could explain that he could not hoot even once like any kind of owl any more than fly like
     a bat. But at any rate hobbits can move quietly in woods, absolutely quietly. They take a pride in it, and Bilbo had sniffed
     more than once at what he called “all this dwarvish racket,” as they went along, though I don’t suppose you or I would have
     noticed anything at all on a windy night, not if the whole cavalcade had passed two feet off. As for Bilbo walking primly
     towards the red light, I don’t suppose even a weasel would have stirred a whisker at it. So, naturally, he got right up to
     the fire—for fire it was—without disturbing anyone. And this is what he saw.
    Three very large persons sitting round a very large fire of beech-logs. They were toasting mutton on long spits of wood, and
     licking the gravy off their fingers. There was a fine toothsome smell. Also there was a barrel of good drink at hand, and
     they were drinking out of jugs. But they were trolls. Obviously trolls. Even Bilbo, in spite of his sheltered life, could
     see that: from the great heavy faces of them, and their size, and the shape of their legs, not to mention their language,
     which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all.
    “Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don’t look like mutton again tomorrer,” said one of the trolls.
    “Never a blinking bit of manflesh have we had for long enough,” said a second. “What the ’ell William was a-thinkin’ of to
     bring us into these parts at all, beats me—and the drink runnin’ short, what’s more,” he said jogging the elbow of William,
     who was taking a pull at his jug.
    William choked. “Shut yer mouth!” he said as soon as he could. “Yer can’t expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et
     by you and Bert. You’ve et a village and a half between yer, since we come down from the mountains. How much more d’yer want?
     And time’s been up our way, when yer’d have said ‘thank yer Bill’ for a nice bit o’ fat valley mutton like what this is.”
     He took a big bite off a sheep’s leg he was roasting, and wiped his lips on his sleeve.
    Yes, I am afraid trolls do behave like that, even those with only one head each. After hearing all this Bilbo ought to have
     done something at once. Either he should have gone back quietly and warned his friends that there were three fair-sized trolls
     at hand in a nasty mood, quite likely to try roasted dwarf, or even pony, for a change; or else he should have done a bit
     of good quick burgling. A really first-class and legendary burglar would at this point have picked the trolls’ pockets—it
     is nearly always worth while, if you can manage it—, pinched the very mutton off the spits, purloined the beer, and walked
     off without their noticing him. Others more practical but with less professional pride would perhaps have stuck a dagger into
     each of them before they observed it. Then the night could have been spent cheerily.
    Bilbo knew it. He had read of a good many things he had never seen or done. He was very much alarmed, as well as disgusted; he wished himself a hundred miles away, and yet—and yet somehow he could not go straight back
     to Thorin and Company emptyhanded. So he stood and hesitated in the shadows. Of the various burglarious proceedings he had
     heard of picking the trolls’ pockets seemed the least difficult, so at last he crept behind a tree just behind William.
    Bert and Tom went off to the barrel. William was having another drink. Then Bilbo plucked up courage and put his little hand
     in William’s enormous pocket. There was a purse in it, as big as a bag to Bilbo. “Ha!” thought he, warming to his new work
     as he lifted it carefully out, “this is a beginning!”
    It was! Trolls’ purses are the mischief, and this was no exception. “’Ere, ’oo are you?” it squeaked, as it left the pocket;
     and William