Jack Vettriano Riviera retro

Jack Vettriano Riviera retroJack Vettriano Ritual of CourtshipJack Vettriano Right X
On the surface of Magrathea Arthur wandered about moodily. Ford had thoughtfully left him his copy of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy to while away the time with. He pushed a few buttons at random. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the the problem of what had happened to all the biros he'd bought over the past few years. There followed a long period of painstaking research during which he visited all the major centres of biro loss throughout the galaxy and eventually came up with a quaint little theory which quite caught the public imagination at the time. Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets Galaxy is a very unevenly edited book and contains many passages that simply seemed to its editors like a good idea at the time. One of these (the one Arthur now came across) supposedly relates the experiences of one Veet Voojagig, a quiet young student at the University of Maximegalon, who pursued a brilliant academic ca studying ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harmonic theory of historical perception, and then, after a night of drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox, became increasingly obsessed with

Yue Minjun Gallant Hero

Yue Minjun Gallant HeroYue Minjun Freedom Leading the PeopleYue Minjun Free and At Leisure-9Yue Minjun Free and At Leisure-8
Trillian sat hunched over a clump of instruments reading off figures. Her voice was carried round the Tannoy system of the whole ship. "Five to one against and falling ..." she said, "four to one against and falling ... three to one ... two ... one ... probability factor of one to one ... we have normality, I repeat we have normality." She turned her microphone off - then turned it back on, with a slight smile and continued: "Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem. Please relax. You will be sent for soon." Zaphod burst out in annoyance: "Who are they , we must have the police of half the Galaxy after us by now, and we stop to pick up hitch hikers. OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?" He tapped irritably at a control panel. Trillian quietly moved his hand before he tapped anything important. Whatever Zaphod's qualities of mind might include - dash, bravado, conceit - he was mechanically inept and could easily blow the ship up with an extravagant gesture. Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason why he had had such a \never really understood the significance of anything he did.Trillian?" Trillian span her seat round to face him and shrugged. "Just a couple of guys we seem to have picked up in open space," she said. "Section ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha." "Yeah, well that's a very sweet thought Trillian," complained Zaphod, "but do you really think it's wise under the circumstances? I mean, here we are on the run and everything

Janmot L'assomption de la Vierge

Janmot L'assomption de la ViergeInness The Sun ShowerJanmot Le Poeme de l'ame - VirginitasInness Sacco Ford Conway Meadows
you have seen someone who has had too much to drink, you've probably noticed definite changes in that person's performance and behavior. The body responds to alcohol in stages, which correspond to an increase in BAC:
1. Euphoria (BAC = 0.03 to 0.12 percent) * They become more self-confident or daring. * Their attention span shortens. * They may look flushed. * Their judgement is not as good -- they may say the first thought that comes to mind, rather than an appropriate comment for the given situation. * They have trouble with fine movements, such asor signing their name.
2. Excitement (BAC = 0.09 to 0.25 percent) * They become sleepy. * They have trouble understanding or remembering things (even recent events). * They do not react to situations as quickly (if they spill a drink they may just stare at it). * Their body movements are uncoordinated. * They begin to lose their balance easily. * Their vision becomes blurry. * They may have trouble sensing things (he

Rivera Vendedora de Alcatraces

Rivera Vendedora de AlcatracesRivera Vendedora de Alcatraces (Salesman of Gannets)Rivera The Zapotec Civilization
anything even more unpleasant to do, and then ..." Arthur tripped, and fell headlong, rolled and landed flat on his back. At last he noticed that something was going on. His finger shot upwards. "What the hell's that?" he shrieked. Whatever it was raced across the sky in monstrous yellowness, tore the sky apart with mind-buggering noise and leapt off into the distance leaving the gaping air to shut behind it with a bang that drove your ears six feet one man stood and watched the sky, stood with terrible sadness in his eyes and rubber bungs in his ears. He knew exactly what was happening and had known ever since his Sub-Etha Sens-O- Matic had started winking in the dead of night beside his pillar and woken him with a start. It was what he had waited for all these years, but when he had deciphered the signal pattern sitting alone in his small dark room a coldness had gripped him and squeezed his heart. Of all the races in all of the Galaxy who could have come and said a big hello to planet Earth, he thought, didn't it just have into your skull. Another one followed and did the same thing only louder. It's difficult to say exactly what the people on the surface of the planet were doing now, because they didn't really know what they were doing themselves. None of it made a lot of sense - running into houses, running out of houses, howling noiselessly at the noise. All around the world city streets exploded with people, cars slewed into each other as the noise fell on them and then rolled off like a tidal wave over hills and valleys, deserts and oceans, seeming to flatten everything it hit. Only

Gockel Downtown VIII

Gockel Downtown VIIIGockel Downtown VIIGockel Dity Dynamics VGockel Deep Blue Dazzler
house-perimeter alarm could be armed or disarmed simply by selecting from a YES-NO option. Currently the YES was lit on the screen. Corky used the mouse to click the NO.Now, with a door key, he could enter Palazzo Rospo as though it were his own sweet. Keys dangled from the belt of each sleeping guard. He unclipped one set, jingled them, and smiled.When he picked up a phone, he heard no dial tone. He tried one of the guard’s s. It didn’t function. Reliable Mick.Leaving the guards to their dreams, Corky descended the stairs and returned to the loggia under the trellis and the trumpet vine. He stripped off the gas mask and threw it away.Through a screen of trees and darkling rain, the great house could be seen perhaps two hundred yards to the north. With only Ethan [544] Truman and the boy in residence, not many windows were lighted, yet the mansion nonetheless reminded Corky of an enormous luxury liner making way on a night sea. And he was the iceberg.He unzipped the deepest pocket on his storm suit and withdrew the Glock that previously he had fitted with a sound suppressor.

Klimt Chiesa a Cassone Sul Garda

Klimt Chiesa a Cassone Sul GardaKlimt Beethoven Frieze (detail)Klimt Avenue of Schloss Kammer ParkKlimt Allee im Park von Schloss Kammer
enough to interrupt conversation.Perhaps he affected sunglasses indoors more often than not. He wore them on this occasion.Spetz-Mogg removed the shades and put them on again nearly as often as he recrossed his legs, though these two written ten works of nonfiction and eight novels. In addition to teaching his classes, he organized conferences, workshops, and seminars. He wrote plays.In Ethan’s experience, industrious people, regardless of the quality of what their labor produced, rarely committed violent crimes. Only in movies did sroutinely indulge in murder and mayhem in addition to corporate responsibilities.nervous tells were [432] not synchronized. He seemed unable to decide whether he had a better chance of surviving interrogation by presenting an open and guileless image or by hiding behind tinted lenses.Although the professor clearly believed that every cop was a brutal fascist, he’d never be one to climb a barricade to shout the accusation. He wasn’t incensed that two agents of the repressive police state wgarrulous responses would wash Ethan and Hazard out of his door before they produced brass knuckles and truncheons.This was not the professor for whom they were searching. Spetz-Mogg might encourage others to commit crimes in the name of one ideal or another, but he was too gutless to do so himself.Besides, he didn’t have time for crime. He had

Rivera Flower Seller

Rivera Flower SellerRivera Flower Festival_ Feast of Santa AnitaRivera Flower DayRivera Festival de las flores
merely for sport, and had buried her deep in the canyon.Now she was of no use to anyone, and this pointless waste of her exceptional flexibility further infuriated Mick.Lowering the Glock from Trotter’s forehead, Corky said, “Let’s go inside.”“Please, let’s not,” Trotter pleaded.“Need I remind you,” Corky said, lying with delightful her feet. ...That a paranoid, conspiracy-drunk, bank-robbing, drug-peddling survivalist with bolt-holes leading from here to the Canadian border should have a weak spot for fragile porcelains didn’t surprise Corky. Regardless of how rough we may appear on the exterior, each of us has a human heart.Corky himself had a weakness for old Shirley Temple movies, in panache, “that your cooperation with me could earn you erasure from all public records, from all tax records, making you the freest man who ever lived, a man utterly unknown to the government?”“I’ll be there tonight. Seven o’clock sharp. Wind or no wind. I swear I will.”“I still want to go inside,” Corky said. “I still feel the need to make my point with you.”A sadness came into Trotter’s Mad Hatter eyes. His walruslike face drooped.Resigned, he led Corky into the house.The bullet holes in the walls, from the previous occasion when Corky had needed to teach Trotter a lesson, had not been repaired; however, the living-room display shelves had been filled with a new collection of Lladro porcelains—statuettes of ballerinas, princesses dancing with princes, children capering with a dog, a lovely farm maiden feeding a flock of geese gathered at

Pierre Auguste Renoir La Moulin de la Galette painting

Pierre Auguste Renoir La Moulin de la Galette paintingPierre Auguste Renoir By the Seashore paintingPierre Auguste Renoir At the Concert painting
headed cat.That was one of Ghost Dad’s expressions. When he thought someone didn’t have both oars in the water, he said, “The guy’s as crazy as Barbra Streisand’s two-headed cat.”Years ago, Ghost Dad had signed a deal to make a to kill which others.According to Ghost Dad, no one in the business dared tell the truth about each of them knew [404] that any of the others was capable of conducting a bloody vendetta of such viciousness that it would have scared the shit out of the meanest Mafioso.Barbra Streisand didn’t actually have a two-headed cat. This Was just a “metaphor,” as Fric’s father called it, for some story element or character that she had wanted to add to her movie after Ghost Dad signed up based on a script without the two-headed cat.He thought the two-headed cat was a totally crazy idea, and Ms. Streisand thought that it would win the picture a shitload of Oscars. So they agreed to disagree, kissed, hugged, swapped praise, and movie directed by Barbra Streisand. Something had gone terribly wrong. Eventually, he backed out of the project.He had never said a negative word about Ms. Streisand. But that didn’t mean they were as friendly and as eager for mutual adventures as all the little animals in The Wind in the Willows.In the pretended to be friends even if maybe they hated each other’s guts. They were kissy-faced, gushy-lovey, always hugging and backslapping, praising one another so convincingly that Sherlock Holmes couldn’t have figured out which of them really wanted

Pierre Auguste Renoir The First Outing painting

Pierre Auguste Renoir The First Outing paintingPierre Auguste Renoir Sleeping Girl paintingPierre Auguste Renoir Les baigneuses painting
against mahogany, black against black marble. ... During ordinary times, they were meant to be inconspicuous. When you lived with them day after day, you soon ceased to notice them.No one but Mrs. McBee would be likely to , he would lie and say “Sandwiches.” He would tell them that he was going to camp out under a blanket tent in the billiards room, where he would pretend that he was a Blackfoot Indian living back in maybe 1880.The whole concept of playing Blackfoot in the billiards room was monumentally stupid, of course. But most grownups believed that geeky ten-year-old boys did stupid, geeky things like that, so he would be believed, and probably pitied.Having people pity you was better than having them think that you were as crazy as Barbra realize that a dozen of those 214 were missing. Mrs. McBee wouldn’t return from Santa Barbara until Thursday morning.[403] Nevertheless, Fric filched quake lights only from remote and little-used rooms where their disappearance was less likely to cause inquiry. He needed them for his deep and special secret hiding place.He stowed the lights in the picnic hamper because it had a hinged lid. As long as he kept the lid closed, the contents could not be seen if he unexpectedly encountered a member of the staff.If anyone asked what was in the hamper

Raphael The Holy Family painting

Raphael The Holy Family paintingWilliam Bouguereau The Broken Pitcher paintingWilliam Bouguereau Love Takes Flight painting
single blade, in fact, but an entire Swiss Army knife with all its cutting edges and pointed tools deployed.Corky Laputa might have loved her if she had not also been ugly.Although he didn’t love Brittina, he made love to her. The disorder into which she had shaped her skeletal body thrilled himof a true obsessive, Brittina Dowd had sharpened herself into a long thin blade. When she walked, her clothes seemed certain to be cut to shreds by the scissoring an intellectual snob who peppered her speech with academic jargon more impenetrable than the lab-speak Manheim’s tutor in English and literature, making regularly scheduled visits to Palazzo Rospo.Prior to this, Rolf Reynerd and Corky had discussed, in general [388] terms, the blow that might be struck in the name of social disorder painted for Corky a detailed psychological portrait of Channing’s son. This would be invaluable when, with Aelfric prisoner, he proceeded to destroy the boy emotionally.In the afterglow of insectCorky figured that his brain would explode if she didn’t shut up, after which he would need a new way to think.

Frida Kahlo Diego and Frida painting

Frida Kahlo Diego and Frida paintingPino pino color paintingPino Angelica painting
Instead of black water and fog where the hospital garage should be, perhaps he’d step out of the elevator to find himself in that black-and-white apartment with the walls of watchful birds, with Rolf Reynerd alive and drawing a pistol from a bag of potato chips. Shot in the gut again, Ethan would receive no reprieve this time.He hesitated, didn’t push the , and no wonder, but in no physical danger. The skeleton staff at the estate still numbered ten, counting Chef Hachette and the groundskeeper, Mr. Yorn. Estate security was formidable. The real danger to Fric remained that some lunatic might get at Channing Manheim, leaving the boy fatherless.Ethan pressed START.button.Maybe because his labored breathing had recalled Fric in an asthmatic phase, Ethan began to think that among the faint and not quite comprehensible words coming from the overhead speaker was the boy’s name. “Fric ...” When he held his breath and concentrated, he couldn’t hear it. When he breathed, the name came again. Or did it?[374] In that other elevator, Monday afternoon, the passing bout of claustrophobia had been a sublimation of another dread that he had not wanted to face: the irrational and yet persistent fear that in Dunny’s apartment he would find his old friend dead but animated, as cold as a corpse but lively.He suspected that this current claustrophobia and the fear of Reynerd resurrected also masked another anxiety that he was reluctant to face, that he could not quite fish from his subconscious.Fric? Fric was emotionally vulnerable

Gustav Klimt Mother and Child detail from The Three Ages of Woman painting

Gustav Klimt Mother and Child detail from The Three Ages of Woman paintingFrancois Boucher The Rape of Europa paintingMichelangelo Buonarroti The Creation of Adam painting
other lines in the telephone system.In fact, many of the coherent snippets seemed to deal with matters too mundane to motivate the dead to reach out to the living: questions about the weather, about grandchildren’s latest report cards from school, bits like “... always loved pecan pie, yours best of [272] all ...” and “... they were in the world, Manheim and to broadcast mentally the area code plus the seven-digit number for Line 24, casting this baited hook into the sea of immortality with the hope that it would catch a spirit.Thus far, , and a series of calls from a hoaxer who, before Ethan’s arrival, had proved to be a security guard better put your pennies away for a rainy day ...” and “... at that cafe you like, the owner keeps a dangerously dirty kitchen ...”And yet ...And yet a few of the voices were said to be so haunted, so bleak with despair or so full of desperate love and concern, that they could not be forgotten, could not be easily explained, especially when the messages were delivered with urgency: “... fumes from the furnace, fumes, don’t go to sleep tonight, fumes ...” and “... I never told you how much I love you, so much, please look for me when you come across, remember me ...” and “... a man in a blue truck, don’t let him get near little Laura, don’t let him near her ...”These most eerie messages reported by paranormal researchers were what motivated Channing Manheim to maintain Line 24 strictly for the convenience of the chatty dead.Every day, wherever

Alphonse Maria Mucha Summer painting

Alphonse Maria Mucha Summer paintingAlphonse Maria Mucha Spring paintingAlphonse Maria Mucha Moet and Chandon White Star painting
directly from the wine cellar to the library, proceeding by an indirect route least likely to result in an encounter with a member of the house staff.Like a spirit, like a phantom, like a boy wearing a cloak of invisibility, he passed room to hall the forces of evil were rising up against you in vast dark battalions, having a low profile improved your chances of avoiding evisceration, decapitation, induction into the soulless legions of the living dead, or whatever other hideous fate they might have planned for you.The last time that Nominal Mom had visited, which wasn’t quite as far back in the mists of time as mastodons and sabertooths, she had told Fric that he was a mouse: “A sweet little mouse that no one ever realizes is there because he’s so quiet, so quick, so quick and so [to stair to room, and no one in the great house registered his passage, in part because he carried a rare gene for catlike stealth, but in part because no one, with the possible exception of Mrs. McBee, cared where the hell he was or ever wondered what the hell he was up to.Being small, thin, and ignored was not always a curse. When

Theodore Robinson Willows and Wildflowers painting

Theodore Robinson Willows and Wildflowers paintingMary Cassatt Woman With A Pearl Necklace In A Loge paintingEduard Manet Flowers In A Crystal Vase paintingEduard Manet Bouquet Of Violets painting
Corky had begun to think that in the case of his mother’s unique metabolism, the key to immortality might be butterfat. So he killed her.If she had been willing to share some of her money while still alive, he would have allowed her to live. He wasn’t greedy.She had not been a believer in generosity or even in parental responsibility, however, and she cared not at all about his comfort or his needs. He’d been concerned that eventually she would change her will and stiff him forever, sheerly for the pleasure of doing so.In her working years, his mother had been a university professor of economics, specializing in Marxist economic models and the vicious .[83] She had believed in nothing more than the righteousness of envy and the power of hatred. When both beliefs proved hollow, she had not abandoned either, but had supplemented them with ice cream.Corky didn’t hate his mother. He didn’t hate anyone.He didn’t envy anyone, either.Having seen those gods fail his mother, he had rejected both. He did not wish to grow old with no comfort but his favorite premium brand of coconut fudge.Four years ago, paying her a secret visit with the intention of quickly and mercifully smothering her in her sleep, he had instead beaten her to death with a fireplace poker, as if he were acting out a story begun by Anne Tyler in an ironic mood and roughly finished by a furious Norman Mailer

Sung Kim Costa del Sol painting

Sung Kim Costa del Sol paintingSung Kim Coastal View paintingSung Kim Cafe at the Canal paintingSung Kim Afternoon Chat painting
voices were murmuring and singing. They themselves went silently. At last Haldir led them down the southward slopes of the hill, and they came again to the great gate hung with lamps, and to the white bridge; and so they passed out and left the city of the Elves. Then they turned away from the paved road and took a were bleak and bare. No mallorn lifted its gold-hung boughs beyond the Land of Lórien.On the bank of the Silverlode, at some distance up from the meeting of the streams, there was a hythe of white stones and white wood. By it were moored many boats and barges. Some were brightly painted, and shone with silver and gold and green, but most were either white or grey. Three small grey boats had been made ready for the travellers, and in these the Elves stowed their goodspath that went off into a deep thicket of mallorn-trees, and passed on, winding through rolling woodlands of silver shadow, leading them ever down, southwards and eastwards, towards the shores of the River.They had gone some ten miles and noon was at hand when they came on a high green wall. Passing through an opening they came suddenly out of the trees. Before them lay a long lawn of shining grass, studded with golden elanor that glinted in the sun. The lawn ran out into a narrow tongue between bright margins: on the right and west the Silverlode flowed glittering; on the left and east the Great River rolled its broad waters, deep and dark. On the further shores the woodlands still marched on southwards as far as the eye could see, but all the banks

Frank Dicksee La Belle Dame Sans Merci painting

Frank Dicksee La Belle Dame Sans Merci paintingSandro Botticelli The Birth of Venus painting

arm let go of Frodo, and Sam pulled him away, crying out for help. Twenty others arms came rippling out. The dark water boiled, and there was a hideous stench.`Into the gateway! Up the stairs! Quick! ' shouted Gandalf leaping back. Rousing them from the horror that seemed to have rooted all but Sam to the ground where they stood, he drove them forward.They were just in time. Sam and Frodo were only a few steps up, and Gandalf had just begun to climb, when the groping the steps and thrust his staff against the doors. There was a quiver in the stone and the stairs trembled, .but the doors did not open. `Well, well! ' said the

Edward Hopper Nighthawks paintingFrederic Edwin Church Sunset painting

tentacles writhed across the narrow shore and fingered the cliff-wall and the doors. One came wriggling over the threshold, glistening in the starlight. Gandalf turned and paused. If he was considering what word would close the gate again from within, there was no need. Many coiling arms seized the doors on either side, and with horrible strength, swung them round. With a shattering echo they slammed, and all light was lost. A noise of rending and crashing came dully through the ponderous stone.Sam, clinging to Frodo's arm, collapsed on a step in the black darkness. `Poor old Bill! ' he said in a choking voice. `Poor old Bill! Wolves and snakes! But the snakes were too much for him. I had to choose, Mr. Frodo. I had to come with you.'They heard Gandalf go back down

Guido Reni paintings

Guido Reni paintingsGeorge Inness paintingsHerbert James Draper paintingsHessam Abrishami paintings
Then through all the years that followed he traced the Ring; but since that history is elsewhere recounted, even as Elrond himself set it down in his books of lore, it is not here recalled. For it is a long tale, full of deeds great and terrible, and briefly though Elrond spoke, the sun rode up the sky, and the morning was passing ere hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so.'`You remember?' said Frodo, speaking his thought aloud in his astonishment. `But I thought,' he stammered as Elrond turned towards him, 'I thought that the fall of Gil-galad was a long he ceased.Of Númenor he spoke, its glory and its fall, and the return of the Kings of Men to Middle-earth out of the deeps of the Sea, borne upon the wings of storm. Then Elendil the Tall and his mighty sons, Isildur and Anárion, became great lords; and the North-realm they made in Arnor, and the South-realm in Gondor above the mouths of Anduin. But Sauron of Mordor assailed them, and they made the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and the hosts of Gil-galad and Elendil were mustered in Arnor.Thereupon Elrond paused a while and sighed. `I remember well the splendour of their banners,' he said. `It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the

Bastida Going for a Swim Valencia

Bastida Going for a Swim ValenciaBastida Gardens of the Alcazar SevilleBastida Fisherman Taking Up the NetsBastida Clotilde Seated on the Sofa
friend, though none knew where he was, or why he had not been present at the feast.In the meanwhile Frodo and Bilbo sat side by side, and Sam came quickly and placed himself near them. They talked together in soft voices, oblivious of the hall about them. Bilbo had not much to say of himself. When he had left Hobbiton he had wandered off aimlessly, along the Road or in the country on either side; but somehow he had steered all the time towards Rivendell. `I got here without much adventure,' he said, `and after a rest I went on with the altogether.`I hear all kinds of news, from over the Mountains, and out of the South, but hardly anything from the Shire. I heard about the Ring, of course. Gandalf has been here often. Not that he has told me a great deal, he has become closer than ever these last few years. The Dúnadan has told dwarves to Dale: my last journey. I shan't travel again. Old Balin had gone away. Then I came back here, and here I have been. I have done this and that. I have written some more of my book. And, of course, I make up a few songs. They sing them occasionally: just to please me, I think; for, of course, they aren't really good enough for Rivendell. And I listen and I think. Time doesn't seem to pass here: it just is. A remarkable place

Godward The New Perfume

Godward The New PerfumeGodward The MirrorGodward The Love LetterGodward The Fruit Vendor
weary work, and we need haste. So tighten your belts, and think with hope of the tables of Elrond's house!'The cold increased as darkness came on. Peering out from the edge of the dell they could see nothing but a grey land now vanishing quickly into shadow. The sky above had cleared again and was slowly filled with twinkling stars. Frodo and his companions huddled round the fire, wrapped in every garment and blanket they Merry suddenly, when he paused at the end of a story of the Elf-Kingdoms. 'Do you know any more of that old lay that you spoke of?''I do indeed,' answered Strider. 'So also does Frodo, for it concerns us closely.' Merry and Pippin looked at Frodo, who was staring into the fire.'I know only the little that Gandalf has told me,' said Frodo slowly. 'Gil-galad was possessed; but Strider was content with a single cloak, and sat a little apart, drawing thoughtfully at his pipe.As night fell and the light of the fire began to shine out brightly he began to tell them tales to keep their minds from fear. He knew many histories and legends of long ago, of Elves and Men and the good and evil deeds of the Elder Days. They wondered how old he was, and where he had learned all this lore.'Tell us of Gil-galad,' said

Neiman America's Cup

Neiman America's CupNeiman America's Cup AustraliaNeiman Alpine SkiingNeiman Along The Rail
down, near or far, here, there or yonder?Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin,White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin!So he sang, running fast, tossing up his hat and catching it, until he was hidden by a fold of the ground: but for some time his hey now! hoy now! came floating back down the wind, which had shifted round towards the south.The air was growing very warm again. The hobbits ran about for a while on larger, stronger, fatter (and older) than their own ponies. Merry, to whom the others belonged, had not, in fact, given them any such names, but they answered to the new names that Tom had given them for the rest of their lives. Tom called them one by one and they climbed over the brow and stood in a line. Then Tom bowed to the hobbits.'Here are your ponies, now!' he said. 'They've more sense (in some ways) than you wandering hobbits the grass, as he told them. Then they lay basking in the sun with the delight of those that have been wafted suddenly from bitter winter to a friendly clime, or of people that, after being long ill and bedridden, wake one day to find that they are unexpectedly well and the day is again full of promise.By the time that Tom returned they were feeling strong (and hungry). He reappeared, hat first, over the brow of the hill, and behind him came in an obedient line six ponies: their own five and one more. The last was plainly old Fatty Lumpkin: he was