Old Bill decided to follow the hobbits back to their camp, not so much out of a desire to help them, as he had implied, but more out of curiosity. Eight hobbits in a boat! he sniggered to himself. No wonder it sank! He knew very well that most hobbits were as nervous as cats around boats, and liked the water about as much as the average barn cat. But eight hobbits in a boat! That would have been a sight to see. He was sorry he missed it, especially the part where the boat sank.
Rolling his clay pipe furiously back and forth between his molars, he struggled to keep up with the hobbit girl as she scurried along the path ahead of him. She wasn't such a bad sort -- Rosie, did she say her name was? -- but the boy annoyed him, the way he hissed and muttered at the girl behind his hand, the suspicious, untrusting little chub. Well, Thunderill would show him who's boss. So busy he was in thinking of the way his trusty blade Thunderill could skewer a hissing, sneering hobbit that he totally missed sight of the low branch. Rosie had trotted right underneath it, but Old Bill caught it full across the forehead. The next thing he knew, he lay flat on his back in the damp soil and leaves of the forest path.
"THUNDERATION!" he bellowed up into the tree branches.
"Oh, my! Oh, my goodness! Oh, my!" he could hear Rosie's fluttery voice as she ran back down the path to assist him. But the boy...was he actually laughing? Darn it all! There he was, laughing because an old man had gone top over teakettle into the mud!
"Stop it, Falco!" ordered Rosie. "It's not funny."
"Sorry," muttered Falco, but the smile still hovered in his eyes and the corners of his mouth as he ran to help Rosie put Old Bill back on his pins. He couldn't help it. The sight had been just too much for him. One minute, there the old guy was, stomping along and puffing away like a chimney. The next minute, his boots were where his head should be, and then... Thunderation! Falco tried to stifle the guffaw that was building in his lungs and mostly succeeded, but it still burst forth as a little snort as his brain replayed the scene. Thunderation! Maybe if he actually liked the old guy it wouldn't have been so funny, but...
Rosie looked daggers at him, and Old Bill looked bloody murder. A knot the size of a small walnut was growing on Old Bill's forehead as he struggled to his feet, shaking off the hobbits' best efforts to assist him. Old Bill was so angry he could hardly speak. He just stomped from one foot to the other, sputtering like a blocked drainpipe.
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