The Hobbit

in fact apparently settled down immovably.
    By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits
     were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed)—Gandalf
     came by. Gandalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have only heard very little of all
     there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Tales and adventures sprouted up all over the place
     wherever he went, in the most extraordinary fashion. He had not been down that way under The Hill for ages and ages, not since
     his friend the Old Took died, in fact, and the hobbits had almost forgotten what he looked like. He had been away over The
     Hill and across The Water on businesses of his own since they were all small hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls.
    All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey
     cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.
    “Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him
     from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
    “What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or
     that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
    “All of them at once,” said Bilbo. “And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. If you have
     a pipe about you, sit down and have a fill of mine! There’s no hurry, we have all the day before us!” Then Bilbo sat down on a seat by his door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke that
     sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away over The Hill.
    “Very pretty!” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke-rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an
     adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
    “I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable
     things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind
     his braces, and blew out another even bigger smokering. Then he took out his morning letters, and began to read, pretending
     to take no more notice of the old man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. But the old
     man did not move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything, till Bilbo got quite uncomfortable
     and even a little cross.
    “Good morning!” he said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The
     Water.” By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.
    “What a lot of things you do use
Good morning
for!” said Gandalf. “Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”
    “Not at all, not at all, my dear sir! Let me see, I don’t think I know your name?”
    “Yes, yes, my dear sir—and I do know your name, Mr. Bilbo Baggins. And you do know my name, though you don’t remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me! To think that I should have lived to be
     good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!”
    “Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened
     themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons
     and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons? Not the man that used to make
     such particularly excellent fireworks! I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve. Splendid! They used
     to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!” You will notice already
     that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers. “Dear me!” he went
     on.