A Long Expected Party

excerpted from Bilbo's Party Speech, Ch 1 "A Long Expected Party", The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien

My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks, and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots...

I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am... I have called you all together for a Purpose. Indeed, for Three Purposes! First of all, to tell you that I am immensely fond of you all, and that eleventy-one years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you as well as you deserve.

Thirdly and finally, I wish to make an A N N O U N C E M E N T. I regret to announce that - though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spnd among you - this is the E N D. I am going. I am leaving NOW. GOOD-BYE!