Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [206]
‘ “Listen to me, Durin’s Folk!” I cried. “If you persuade this Hobbit to join you, you will succeed. If you do not, you will fail. If you refuse even to try, then I have finished with you. You will get no more advice or help from me until the Shadow falls on you!”
‘Thorin turned and looked at me in astonishment, as well he might. “Strong words!” he said. “Very well, I will come. Some foresight is on you, if you are not merely crazed.”
‘ “Good!” I said. “But you must come with good will, not merely in the hope of proving me a fool. You must be patient and not easily put off, if neither the courage nor the desire for adventure that I speak of are plain to see at first sight. He will deny them. He will try to back out; but you must not let him.”
‘ “Haggling will not help him, if that is what you mean,” said Thorin. “I will offer him a fair reward for anything that he recovers, and no more.”
‘It was not what I meant, but it seemed useless to say so. “There is one other thing,” I went on; “you must make all your plans and preparations beforehand. Get everything ready! Once persuaded he must have no time for second thoughts. You must go straight from the Shire, east on your quest.”
‘ “He sounds a very strange creature, this thief of yours,” said a young Dwarf called Fili (Thorin’s nephew, as I afterwards learned). “What is his name, or the one that he uses?”
‘ “Hobbits use their real names,” I said. “The only one that he has is Bilbo Baggins.”
‘ “What a name!” said Fili, and laughed. ‘
“He thinks it very respectable,” I said. “And it fits well enough; for he is a middle-aged bachelor, and getting a bit flabby and fat. Food is perhaps at present his main interest. He keeps a very good larder, I am told, and maybe more than one. At least you will be well entertained.”
‘ “That is enough,” said Thorin. “If I had not given my word, I would not come now. I am in no mood to be made a fool of. For I am serious also. Deadly serious, and my heart is hot within me.”
‘I took no notice of this. “Look now, Thorin,” I said, “April is passing and Spring is here. Make everything ready as soon as you can. I have some business to do, but I shall be back in a week. When I return, if all is in order, I will ride on ahead to prepare the ground. Then we will all visit him together on the following day.”
‘And with that I took my leave, not wishing to give Thorin more chance of second thoughts than Bilbo was to have. The rest of the story is well known to you – from Bilbo’s point of view. If I had written the account, it would have sounded rather different. He did not know all that went on: the care, for instance, that I took so that the coming of a large party of Dwarves to Bywater, off the main road and their usual beat, should not come to his ears too soon.
‘It was on the morning of Tuesday, April the 25th, 2941, that I called to see Bilbo; and though I knew more or less what to expect, I must say that my confidence was shaken. I saw that things would be far more difficult than I had thought. But I persevered. Next day, Wednesday, April the 26th, I brought Thorin and his companions to Bag End; with great difficulty so far as Thorin was concerned – he hung back at the last. And of course Bilbo was completely bewildered and behaved ridiculously. Everything in fact went extremely badly for me from the beginning; and that unfortunate business about the “professional thief ”, which the Dwarves had got firmly into their heads, only made matters worse. I was thankful that I had told Thorin we should all stay the night at Bag End, since we should need time to discuss ways and means. It gave me a last chance. If Thorin had left Bag End before I could see him alone, my plan would have been ruined.’
It will be seen that some elements of this conversation were in the later version taken up into the argument between