The Hobbit

the
     tunnel, an opening of much the same size and shape as the door above. Through it peeps the hobbit’s little head. Before him
     lies the great bottom-most cellar or dungeon-hall of the ancient dwarves right at the Mountain’s root. It is almost dark so
     that its vastness can only be dimly guessed, but rising from the near side of the rocky floor there is a great glow. The glow
     of Smaug!
    There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but
     his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching
     away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver
     red-stained in the ruddy light.
    Smaug lay, with wings folded like an immeasurable bat, turned partly on one side, so that the hobbit could see his underparts
     and his long pale belly crusted with gems and fragments of gold from his long lying on his costly bed. Behind him where the
     walls were nearest could dimly be seen coats of mail, helms and axes, swords and spears hanging; and there in rows stood great
     jars and vessels filled with a wealth that could not be guessed.
    To say that Bilbo’s breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since
     Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. Bilbo had heard tell and
     sing of dragon-hoards before, but the splendour, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him. His
     heart was filled and pierced with enchantment and with the desire of dwarves; and he gazed motionless, almost forgetting the
     frightful guardian, at the gold beyond price and count.
    He gazed for what seemed an age, before drawn almost against his will, he stole from the shadow of the doorway, across the
     floor to the nearest edge of the mounds of treasure. Above him the sleeping dragon lay, a dire menace even in his sleep. He
     grasped a great two-handled cup, as heavy as he could carry, and cast one fearful eye upwards. Smaug stirred a wing, opened
     a claw, the rumble of his snoring changed its note.
    Then Bilbo fled. But the dragon did not wake—not yet—but shifted into other dreams of greed and violence, lying there in his
     stolen hall while the little hobbit toiled back up the long tunnel. His heart was beating and a more fevered shaking was in his legs than when he was going
     down, but still he clutched the cup, and his chief thought was: “I’ve done it! This will show them. ‘More like a grocer than
     a burglar’ indeed! Well, we’ll hear no more of that.”
    Nor did he. Balin was overjoyed to see the hobbit again, and as delighted as he was surprised. He picked Bilbo up and carried
     him out into the open air. It was midnight and clouds had covered the stars, but Bilbo lay with his eyes shut, gasping and
     taking pleasure in the feel of the fresh air again, and hardly noticing the excitement of the dwarves, or how they praised
     him and patted him on the back and put themselves and all their families for generations to come at his service.
    The dwarves were still passing the cup from hand to hand and talking delightedly of the recovery of their treasure, when suddenly
     a vast rumbling woke in the mountain underneath as if it was an old volcano that had made up its mind to start eruptions once
     again. The door behind them was pulled nearly to, and blocked from closing with a stone, but up the long tunnel came the dreadful
     echoes, from far down in the depths, of a bellowing and a trampling that made the ground beneath them tremble.
    Then the dwarves forgot their joy and their confident boasts of a moment before and cowered down in fright. Smaug was still
     to be reckoned with. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. Dragons may not
     have much real use for all their wealth, but they know it to an ounce as a rule, especially after long possession; and Smaug was no exception. He had passed from an uneasy
     dream (in which a warrior, altogether insignificant in size but provided with a bitter sword and great courage, figured most
     unpleasantly) to a doze, and from a doze to wide waking. There was a breath of strange air in his cave. Could there be a draught
     from that little hole? He had never felt quite happy about it, though it was so