In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill—The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

  This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found herself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. She may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but the Baggins in question never had nearly as much as her uncle.

  As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit whose home we are discussing—of Bilbo Baggins, that is—was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures. They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtedly richer.

  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 smoke-ring. 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. “Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures? Anything from climbing trees to visiting elves—or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores! Bless me, life used to be quite inter—I mean, you used to upset things badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in business.”

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  “Where else should I be?” said the wizard. “All the same I am pleased to find you remember something about me. You seem to remember my fireworks kindly, at any rate, and that is not without hope. Indeed for your old grandfather Took’s sake, and for the sake of poor Belladonna, I will give you what you asked for.”

  “I beg your pardon, I haven’t asked for anything!”

  “Yes, you have! Twice now. My pardon. I give it you. In fact I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you—and profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it.”

  “Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But please come to tea—any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good bye!” With that the hobbit turned and scuttled inside his round green door, and shut it as quickly as he dared, not to seem rude. Wizards after all are wizards.

  “What on earth did I ask him to tea for!” he said to himself, as he went to the pantry. He had only just had breakfast, but he thought a cake or two and a drink of something would do him good after his fright.

  Gandalf in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly. After a while he stepped up, and with the spike on his staff scratched a queer sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green front-door. Then he strode away, just about the time when Bilbo was finishing his second cake and beginning to think that he had escaped adventures very well.

  But the issue continued to nag at him the rest of the morning, and even into the early afternoon when he received a knock on the door. He went up to it and opened the round door all proper hobbit-like.

  "Uncle!" A cry came out as the sunlight spilled in the foyer.

  "My dear Tanya, how wonderful for you to stop by!" He greeted enthusiastically. Tanya Baggins was Bilbo's favorite niece. Technically a blood relation on his mother's side--the Took side--she'd been adopted by a cousin on his father's side after her parents had dramatically died when she was a young child. And if the queerness (to hobbits, that is) of the Old Took could be found in Bilbo, it was undoubtedly much stronger found in dear young Tanya. (Not that she was a child anymore, as she was rather keen to insist, at nearly 24 years of age).

  And that was when ten minutes later, over a cup of strong tea and some cakes, that Baggins suddenly remembered what had happened earlier with Gandalf and abruptly, most impolitely, brought it up to his niece. "And I don't know what I'm going to do about him. Why did I have to invite such trouble to tea?" he lamented.

  Tanya's nose scrunched at that, her eyes considering it for an appropriate time before responding. "Well, uncle, why don't you take that holiday you've been on about? A quick day or two across the Shire should be just what you need to keep away from entangling yourself with the affairs of wizards."

  "But dear Tanya, I couldn't possibly skip out on a tea invitation I had sent out. My reputation would be ruined, not to say of whatever poor Gandalf may take offense to."

  "Well, dear uncle, why don't you let me handle it. I'll stay here in a guest room to keep the place tidy and when Gandalf comes by tomorrow, I'll entertain him and pass along your pardons that you could not keep your commitment for tea."

  Bilbo seemingly brightened up at that. "Why, yes. Yes. That's quite the idea. Yes, we'll do exactly that!" he ended with a shout, as he got up to pack a bag.

  As Bilbo bustled around his house finding odds and ends to throw into his satchel, Tanya quietly went back to the front yard and ran a finger across the queer sign on her uncle's front door. "Gandalf…" she whispered.

  By suppertime the following evening, Gandalf found himself banging on Bilbo's front door quite hard, being sure to knock out the secret mark that he had put there the morning before to lead his dwarven companions. The door opened promptly to, to his surprise, a young, blond hobbit girl. Moreover, to his surprise, Bilbo's home seemed far to quiet for hosting thirteen dwarves.

  "Mister Gandalf, I presume?" she asked with quite the edge to her voice, and the rough tousle of her hair.

  "Why, yes," he replied, most of the humor from his little joke having seeming slipped away. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage for once Miss…"

  "Tanya Baggins" she replied, offering her hand. "A blood niece on Bilbo's mother's side, and an adopted niece on Bilbo's father's side. I suppose you're here for tea?"

  "Yes… that's right. Is Bilbo in? And praytell, have there been any other… persons that have come by today?"

  "Bilbo had to leave on an urgent matter yesterday and sends his regrets, though he did charge me with entertaining you for tea. And I suppose then that the thirteen dwarves tied up in the dining room are yours?"

  "Tied up?" he asked, perplexed, and even more astonished as she led him out the foyer to said room where, indeed, thirteen dwarves were tied up, half unconscious, and all gagged quite ferociously.

  After clarifying that yes, indeed, the dwarves were his companions and had been invited by him, they had been released and revived from their involuntarily confinement. By this point, it really was nearing suppertime and Tanya began barking out orders to the twelve dwarven subordinates to have the larders emptied, dinner prepared and the table set, all without a single mess. She went around smacking a wooden spoon in her hand as the dwarfmen rushed around to do her bidding.

  Gandalf and Thorin meanwhile sat near the hearth, watching this all happen, smoking a pair of pipes to take the edge of the rather intense experience they'd had so recently.

  "So, Thorin," Gandalf began unhelpfully. "Might I know how your party found itself so … indisposed?"

  The dwarf grunted and he erratically huffed out plumes of smoke. "Damndest thing. I arrived last with Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur. We saw your mark on the door and knocked. There we were waiting when that lass dropped on Bombur from the top of the hill and knocked him out with a single strike of a pan. Before we could react, she knocked Bifur out. Bofur and I jumped her but she Bofur between his legs and then out wrestled me to the ground and trussed me up. The rest you can guess."

  Gandalf hummed appreciatively. "Well, I had intended her uncle to join this venture. But perhaps she's a better suited Baggins for it."

  From there, the evening proceeded along lines better expected. This Tanya Baggins seemed exceptionally reluctant to join the company, but did perk up at the prospect of a one-fourteenth share of a dragon's hoard, muttering about an early retirement.