The Count followed this marvel by paying a princely sum for the restoration of the buildings destroyed by the charge of the moumaques; for hobbites can work like bees when the mood and the financial incentive strikes them. The façades were entirely redone, with a Haradric eye-motif that the inhabitants found enchanting, and were with the typical bon sens hobbitain renamed Smiaux Meilleurs.
On arriving home, Mme de Villefaramir immediately wrote a letter to Mme de Sacquevile-Danglars, telling her that, although yesterday she had with difficulty restrained herself from mocking the baroness's enthusiasm for the Count, she now found that enthusiasm to be as far beneath his true value as the wine-cellars of Sauron are beneath the eagle-borne cafés of Manvre. Before long, tongues were wagging in the fashionable monde of Annuminas: Réginard related the occurrence to his mother; Château-Renard sang of it at the Foxtrot-Club; De Brie in the salon of the minister; Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines himself paid the Count the compliment of devoting twenty lines to the affair in the Leaf du Shiré. And the aelurophilous lady's husband, M. de Villefaramir, hastened that very evening to visit the Count at Champs-Valinorées.
