The Hobbit

tunic.
    “I am Gandalf,” said the wizard.
    “Never heard of him,” growled the man. “And what’s this little fellow?” he said, stooping down to frown at the hobbit with
     his bushy black eyebrows.
    “That is Mr. Baggins, a hobbit of good family and unimpeachable reputation,” said Gandalf. Bilbo bowed. He had no hat to take
     off, and was painfully conscious of his many missing buttons. “I am a wizard,” continued Gandalf. “I have heard of you, if
     you have not heard of me; but perhaps you have heard of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood?”
    “Yes; not a bad fellow as wizards go, I believe. I used to see him now and again,” said Beorn. “Well, now I know who you are,
     or who you say you are. What do you want?”
    “To tell you the truth, we have lost our luggage and nearly lost our way, and are rather in need of help, or at least of advice.
     I may say we have had rather a bad time with goblins in the mountains.”
    “Goblins?” said the big man less gruffly. “O ho, so you’ve been having trouble with
them
have you? What did you go near them for?”
    “We did not mean to. They surprised us at night in a pass which we had to cross; we were coming out of the Lands over West
     into these countries—it is a long tale.”
    “Then you had better come inside and tell me some of it, if it won’t take all day,” said the man leading the way through a
     dark door that opened out of the courtyard into the house.
    Following him they found themselves in a wide hall with a fire-place in the middle. Though it was summer there was a wood-fire
     burning and the smoke was rising to the blackened rafters in search of the way out through an opening in the roof. They passed
     through this dim hall, lit only by the fire and the hole above it, and came through another smaller door into a sort of veranda
     propped on wooden posts made of single tree-trunks. It faced south and was still warm and filled with the light of the westering
     sun which slanted into it, and fell golden on the garden full of flowers that came right up to the steps.

    Here they sat on wooden benches while Gandalf began his tale, and Bilbo swung his dangling legs and looked at the flowers
     in the garden, wondering what their names could be, as he had never seen half of them before.
    “I was coming over the mountains with a friend or two...” said the wizard.
    “Or two? I can only see one, and a little one at that,” said Beorn.
    “Well to tell you the truth, I did not like to bother you with a lot of us, until I found out if you were busy. I will give
     a call, if I may.”
    “Go on, call away!”
    So Gandalf gave a long shrill whistle, and presently Thorin and Dori came round the house by the garden path and stood bowing
     low before them.
    “One or three you meant, I see!” said Beorn. “But these aren’t hobbits, they are dwarves!”
    “Thorin Oakenshield, at your service! Dori at your service!” said the two dwarves bowing again.
    “I don’t need your service, thank you,” said Beorn, “but I expect you need mine. I am not over fond of dwarves; but if it
     is true you are Thorin (son of Thrain, son of Thror, I believe), and that your companion is respectable, and that you are
     enemies of goblins and are not up to any mischief in my lands—what are you up to, by the way?”
    “They are on their way to visit the land of their fathers, away east beyond Mirkwood,” put in Gandalf, “and it is entirely
     an accident that we are in your lands at all. We were crossing by the High Pass that should have brought us to the road that lies to the south of your country, when we were attacked by the evil goblins—as
     I was about to tell you.”
    “Go on telling, then!” said Beorn, who was never very polite.
    “There was a terrible storm; the stone-giants were out hurling rocks, and at the head of the pass we took refuge in a cave,
     the hobbit and I and several of our companions...”
    “Do you call two several?”
    “Well, no. As a matter of fact there were more than two.”
    “Where are they? Killed, eaten, gone home?” “Well, no. They don’t seem all to have come when I whistled. Shy, I expect. You
     see, we are very much afraid that we are rather a lot for you to entertain.”
    “Go on, whistle again! I am in for a party, it seems, and one or two more won’t make much difference,” growled Beorn.
    Gandalf whistled again; but Nori and Ori were there almost before he