This afternoon I was dusting my bedroom, and I paused a moment to take my copy of
The Hobbit off the rack where I keep it, on top of one of my barrister bookcases. It had been a very long time since I last opened the book, and I really need to replace it. The book is a paperback, and the copy is so old the pages have all turned brown. I reread the first few pages, and once again I was delighted by how chatty and middle class the opening of the story is, like the servants gossiping below stairs in some program on
Masterpiece Theatre. 
Especially the part where the narrator says that Bilbo's father built the hobbit hole in part with his wife's money. ...
I know it's traditional and in other stories as well, but any idea why dragons like gold?
I keep thinking of Colonel Dolarhyde's line in the movie Cowboys and Aliens:
"What are they going to do? Buy something?"
