"In two hours," he thought, "these people will leave with fifty floquerins, to risk their lives in attempting to obtain another fifty. Were they to receive five hundred floquerins, they would spend them with the pride of Ar-Pharazon in one night in Rivendeau. Today hope impels me to despise their riches, which seem to me to the deepest misery; tomorrow, perhaps, disappointment will move me to envy their misery. Oh no!" cried Samouard. "The wise and infallible Frodia will not have erred in this one matter. And it were as well to die, as to live this pitiable life." For Gamgès, who three months ago desired only liberty, had already had enough of it, and aspired to wealth. The fault it not his, but that of Érou, who has given us the strange gift that impels us never to be satisfied, but always to strive for more, be it indeed beyond the circles of the world or merely in one of the 647 bordels of Brie.
However, on a path lost between two columns of hallucinogenic mushrooms, and where, in all probability, befurred foot of hobbite had never trodden, Gamgès arrived at the point where he supposed that the glittering caves of Monte Fato must have existed – for he beheld certain rocks bearing a vague resemblance to the Pouquémons feared by our superstitious ancestors. From time to time, however, these signs disappeared under the mantle of the mushrooms and groves of cannabis that flourished there like one of the gardens of Harad al-Guimilzoûr. In due course, the signs ceased altogether, coming to a halt before a single mighty stone that stood like a finger of destiny: the twentieth rock. "And now," he cried, remembering the story of the dwarvish fisher Pedro at the gate of Ckazade-doûm, "Open, cantaloupe!"
