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Chapter One: My Uncle Makes a Great Discovery
Looking back to all that has occured to me since that eventful day, I am scarcely
able to believe in the reality of my adventures. They were truly so wonderful
that even now I am bewildered when I think of them.
My uncle was a Baggins, and my mother, a Brandybuck. Being very much attached
to his fatherless nephew, he invited me to study under him in his home at Bag-End.
THis home was in a large town, and my uncle a professor of philosophy, chemistry,
geology, minerology, and many other ologies.
One day, after passing some hours in the library-- my uncle being absent at
the time-- I suddenly felt the necessity of renovating the tissues-- i.e., I
was hungry, and was about to rouse up our old Gaffer, when my uncle, Bilbo Baggins,
suddenly opened the street door, and came rushing upstairs.
Now Bilbo, my worthy uncle, is by no means a bad sort of hobbit; he is, however,
choleric and original. To bear with him means to obey; and scarcely had his
hairy feet resounded within our joint domicile than he shouted for me to attend
him.
"Frodo-- Frodo-- Frodo--"
I hastened to obey, but before I could reach his room, jumping three steps at
a time, he was stamping his right foot upon the landing.
"Frodo!" he cried, in a frantic tone, "are you coming up?"
Now to tell the truth, at that moment I was far more interested in the question
as to what was to constitute our dinner than in any problem of science; to me
soup was far more interesting than soda, an omelette more tempting than arithmetic,
and an artichoke of ten times more value than any amount of asbestos.