The Hobbit

Mr. Lucky Number? I am pleased
     to hear that you had other business in these parts besides my gold. In that case you may, perhaps, not altogether waste your
     time.
    “I don’t know if it has occurred to you that, even if you could steal the gold bit by bit—a matter of a hundred years or so—you
     could not get it very far? Not much use on the mountain-side? Not much use in the forest? Bless me! Had you never thought
     of the catch? A fourteenth share, I suppose, or something like it, those were the terms, eh? But what about delivery? What
     about cartage? What about armed guards and tolls?” And Smaug laughed aloud. He had a wicked and a wily heart, and he knew his guesses were not far out, though
     he suspected that the Lake-men were at the back of the plans, and that most of the plunder was meant to stop there in the
     town by the shore that in his young days had been called Esgaroth.
    You will hardly believe it, but poor Bilbo was really very taken aback. So far all his thoughts and energies had been concentrated
     on getting to the Mountain and finding the entrance. He had never bothered to wonder how the treasure was to be removed, certainly
     never how any part of it that might fall to his share was to be brought back all the way to Bag-End Under-Hill.
    Now a nasty suspicion began to grow in his mind—had the dwarves forgotten this important point too, or were they laughing
     in their sleeves at him all the time? That is the effect that dragon-talk has on the inexperienced. Bilbo of course ought
     to have been on his guard; but Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality.
    “I tell you,” he said, in an effort to remain loyal to his friends and to keep his end up, “that gold was only an afterthought
     with us. We came over hill and under hill, by wave and wind, for
Revenge
. Surely, O Smaug the unassessably wealthy, you must realize that your success has made you some bitter enemies?”
    Then Smaug really did laugh—a devastating sound which shook Bilbo to the floor, while far up in the tunnel the dwarves huddled
     together and imagined that the hobbit had come to a sudden and a nasty end.
    “Revenge!” he snorted, and the light of his eyes lit the hall from floor to ceiling like scarlet lightning. “Revenge! The
     King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge? Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten
     his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons’ sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare
     resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am
     old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!” he gloated. “My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords,
     my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!”
    “I have always understood,” said Bilbo in a frightened squeak, “that dragons were softer underneath, especially in the region
     of the—er—chest; but doubtless one so fortified has thought of that.”
    The dragon stopped short in his boasting. “Your information is antiquated,” he snapped. “I am armoured above and below with
     iron scales and hard gems. No blade can pierce me.”
    “I might have guessed it,” said Bilbo. “Truly there can nowhere be found the equal of Lord Smaug the Impenetrable. What magnificence
     to possess a waistcoat of fine diamonds!”
    “Yes, it is rare and wonderful, indeed,” said Smaug absurdly pleased. He did not know that the hobbit had already caught a
     glimpse of his peculiar under-covering on his previous visit, and was itching for a closer view for reasons of his own. The
     dragon rolled over. “Look!” he said. “What do you say to that?”
    “Dazzlingly marvellous! Perfect! Flawless! Staggering!” exclaimed Bilbo aloud, but what he thought inside was: “Old fool!
     Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!”
    After he had seen that Mr. Baggins’ one idea was to get away. “Well, I really must not detain Your Magnificence any longer,”
     he said, “or keep you from much needed rest. Ponies take some catching, I believe, after a long start. And so do burglars,”
     he added as a parting shot, as he darted back and fled up the tunnel.
    It was an unfortunate remark, for the dragon spouted terrific flames after him, and fast though he sped up the slope, he had
     not gone