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"Shut up!" said they, "or we'll never have done. And yer can fetch the water yerself, if yer say any more."
"Shut up yerself!" said Tom, who thought it was William's voice. "Who's arguing but you. I'd like to know."
"You're a booby," said William.
"Booby yerself!" said Tom.
And so the argument began all over again, and went on hotter than ever, until at last they decided to sit on the sacks one by one and squash them, and boil them next time.
"Who shall we sit on first?" said the voice.
"Better sit on the last fellow first," said Bert, whose eye had been damaged by Thorin. He thought Tom was talking.
"Don't talk to yerself!" said Tom. "But if you wants to sit on the last one, sit on him. Which is he?"
"The one with the yellow stockings," said Bert.
"Nonsense, the one with the grey stockings," said a voice like William's.
"I made sure it was yellow," said Bert.
"Yellow it was," said William.
"Then what did yer say it was grey for?" said Bert.
"I never did. Tom said it."
"That I never did!" said Tom. "It was you."
"Two to one, so shut yer mouth!" said Bert.
"Who are you a-talkin' to?" said William.
"Now stop it!" said Tom and Bert together. "The night's gettin' on, and dawn comes early. Let's get on with it!"
"Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!" said a voice that sounded like William's. But it wasn't. For just at that moment the light came over the hill, and there was a mighty twitter in the branches. William never spoke for he stood turned to stone as he stooped; and Bert and Tom were stuck like rocks as they looked at him. And there they stand to this day, all alone, unless the birds perch on them; for trolls, as you probably know, must be underground before dawn, or they go back to the stuff of the mountains they are made of, and never move again. That is what had happened to Bert and Tom and William.
"Excellent!" said Gandalf, as he stepped from behind a tree, and helped Bilbo to climb down out of a thorn-bush. Then Bilbo understood. It was the wizard's voice that had kept the trolls bickering and quarrelling, until the light came and made an end of them.
The next thing was to untie the sacks and let out the dwarves. They were nearly suffocated, and very annoyed: they had not at all enjoyed lying there listening to the trolls making plans for roasting them and squashing them and mincing them. They had to hear Bilbo's account of what had happened to him twice over, before they were satisfied.
"Silly time to go practising pinching and pocket-picking," said Bombur, "when what we wanted was fire and food!"
"And that's just what you wouldn't have got of those fellows without a struggle, in any case," said Gandalf.
"Anyhow you are wasting time now. Don't you realize that the trolls must have a cave or a hole dug somewhere near to hide from the sun in? We must look into it!"
They searched about, and soon found the marks of trolls' stony boots going away through the trees. They followed the tracks up the hill, until hidden by bushes they came on a big door of stone leading to a cave. But they could not open it, not though they all pushed while Gandalf tried various incantations.