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(This is the first page out of Christopher Isherwood's
Mr. Norris Changes Trains, practically unchanged)
My first impression was that the stranger's eyes were
of an unusually light blue. They met mine for several
blank seconds, vacant, unmistakably scared. Startled
and innocently naughty, they had reminded me of an incident
I couldn't quite place; something which had happened
a long time ago, to do with the pilfering of Gandalf's
fireworks by a young hobbit. They were the eyes of a
young hobbiton elvish pupil surprised in the act of
breaking the rules. Not that I had caught him, apparently,
at anything except his own divided thoughts: perhaps
he imagined that I had some power to read them. At any
rate, he seemed not to have heard or seem me come upon
him at the edge of the stream from my vantage point
on a stone, though I was not wearing the one ring, for
he started violently at the sound of my voice; so violently,
indeed , that his nervous recoil hit me like repercussion.
Instinctively I took a pace backwards.
It was exactly as though we had collided with each other
bodily in the street. We were both confused, both ready
to be apologetic. Smiling, anxious to reassure him,
I repeated my question:
'I wonder sir, if you could lead me to Mordor?'
Even now, he didn't answer at once. He appeared to be
engaged in some sort of rapid mental calcualtion, while
his fingers, nervously active, sketched a number of
flurried gestures around his torso, though he wore no
waistcoat. For all they conveyed, he might equally have
been going to undress out of imaginary clothing, to
draw a blade, or merely to make sure that I hadn't stolen
a secretive object of value. Then the moment of agitation
passed from his gaze like a little cloud, leaving a
clear blue sky. At last he had understood what it was
that I wanted:
'Yesss, yesss certainly preciousss.'
As he spoke he deftly crossed his arms and rubbed neck
and shoulder with the opposite hand somewhat delicately,
with a calming finger-tap, coughed, and suddenly smiled.
His smile had great charm. It disclosed the ugliest
teeth I had ever seen. They were like broken rocks.
'Certainly,' he repeated. 'Smeagol likes kind hobbitses'