"Nay, for who will nourish your mother and your sister? My creditors will devour all the mushrooms for themselves."
Meurtrier bowed his head and said, "Quaplât!"
"I do not fear death," said Morrie, "but a cage, wherein the bankrupts are exposed, according to the ancient customs of the hobbites, to the mockery and rotten tomatoes of all. Dying, however, I may yet be worthy of a song.
"Heed the words! The representative of Bombadil and Forn alone has shown mercy on my adversity; be it then the first to be repaid when fortune smiles on you again, as smile it will, even as Luthienne smiled upon Béren when she beheld the erotic toys he had bought her. And let it always be said of me: he was a burnt hobbite. My will is in the 117th tobacco-jar. Receive now my blessing!"
Weeping, Meurtrier bowed and departed.
The minutes passed ineluctably, until Morrie no longer counted by the minute, but by the second. He lit a torch, thrust the brand amid the fuel, and laid himself upon the pyre.
"Stay!" cried a stentorian voice. "Stay this madness!"
