The Hobbit

Bofur as well. I haven’t ventured to introduce them before, but here they are.”
    In came Bifur and Bofur. “And me!” gasped Bombur puffing up behind. He was fat, and also angry at being left till last. He
     refused to wait five minutes, and followed immediately after the other two.
    “Well, now there
are
fifteen of you; and since goblins can count, I suppose that is all that there were up the trees. Now perhaps we can finish
     this story without any more interruptions.” Mr. Baggins saw then how clever Gandalf had been. The interruptions had really
     made Beorn more interested in the story, and the story had kept him from sending the dwarves off at once like suspicious beggars.
     He never invited people into his house, if he could help it. He had very few friends and they lived a good way away; and he
     never invited more than a couple of these to his house at a time. Now he had got fifteen strangers sitting in his porch!
    By the time the wizard had finished his tale and had told of the eagles’ rescue and of how they had all been brought to the
     Carrock, the sun had fallen behind the peaks of the Misty Mountains and the shadows were long in Beorn’s garden.
    “A very good tale!” said he. “The best I have heard for a long while. If all beggars could tell such a good one, they might
     find me kinder. You may be making it all up, of course, but you deserve a supper for the story all the same. Let’s have something
     to eat!”
    “Yes please!” they all said together. “Thank you very much!”
    Inside the hall it was now quite dark. Beorn clapped his hands, and in trotted four beautiful white ponies and several large
     long-bodied grey dogs. Beorn said something to them in a queer language like animal noises turned into talk. They went out
     again and soon came back carrying torches in their mouths, which they lit at the fire and stuck in low brackets on the pillars
     of the hall about the central hearth. The dogs could stand on their hind-legs when they wished, and carry things with their
     fore-feet. Quickly they got out boards and trestles from the side walls and set them up near the fire.
    Then baa—baa—baa! was heard, and in came some snow-white sheep led by a large coal-black ram. One bore a white cloth embroidered
     at the edges with figures of animals; others bore on their broad backs trays with bowls and platters and knives and wooden
     spoons, which the dogs took and quickly laid on the trestle-tables. These were very low, low enough even for Bilbo to sit at comfortably. Beside them a pony pushed two
     low-seated benches with wide rush-bottoms and little short thick legs for Gandalf and Thorin, while at the far end he put
     Beorn’s big black chair of the same sort (in which he sat with his great legs stuck far out under the table). These were all
     the chairs he had in his hall, and he probably had them low like the tables for the convenience of the wonderful animals that
     waited on him. What did the rest sit on? They were not forgotten. The other ponies came in rolling round drum-shaped sections
     of logs, smoothed and polished, and low enough even for Bilbo; so soon they were all seated at Beorn’s table, and the hall
     had not seen such a gathering for many a year.
    There they had a supper, or a dinner, such as they had not had since they left the Last Homely House in the West and said
     good-bye to Elrond. The light of the torches and the fire flickered about them, and on the table were two tall red beeswax
     candles. All the time they ate, Beorn in his deep rolling voice told tales of the wild lands on this side of the mountains,
     and especially of the dark and dangerous wood, that lay outstretched far to North and South a day’s ride before them, barring
     their way to the East, the terrible forest of Mirkwood.
    The dwarves listened and shook their beards, for they knew that they must soon venture into that forest and that after the
     mountains it was the worst of the perils they had to pass before they came to the dragon’s stronghold. When dinner was over
     they began to tell tales of their own, but Beorn seemed to be growing drowsy and paid little heed to them. They spoke most of gold and silver and jewels and the making of things by
     smith-craft, and Beorn did not appear to care for such things: there were no things of gold or silver in his hall, and few
     save the knives were made of metal at all.
    They sat long at the table with their wooden drinking-bowls filled