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<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nAh, Bilbo Baggins, reviewing the Dwarves’ contract for his services…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wait. Bilbo Baggins<\/em>? This figure doesn’t look much like Martin Freeman. I see more Rowan Atkinson than Freeman in those eyebrows and that visage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps this isn’t Bilbo Baggins at all. Perhaps it’s Bilbo Baggins’ distant cousin, Mr. Bilbo Blackadder, the most devious and cunning Hobbit on Bagshot Row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, I can see it now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gandalf the Grey comes to Hobbiton, looking for a Hobbit to go on a great adventure. He comes to Number 13 Bagshot Row, the home of Mr. Bilbo Blackadder. Bilbo Blackadder reviews the contract, masks his disinterest with a feigned injury that prevents him from walking twenty feet without fainting, and suggests that his cousin Bilbo Baggins, who lives at Number 1 Bagshot Row, is far better suited. Gandalf the Grey thanks Bilbo Blackadder for his time and departs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bilbo Blackadder thinks he’s pulled the wool over the Wandering Wizard’s eyes, thinking himself all clever and devious, but Gandalf, who hadn’t been to the Shire in a fair few years — and the last time he was there he was feeling the Pipeweed — realized he’d made a mistake and misremembered the address he really wanted — that of Mr. Bilbo Baggins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, the next morning, when Bilbo Blackadder sees his cousin running down the hill in pursuit of the departing Dwarves, he’s convinced he’ll never see his cousin again, and good riddance, too — that party Bilbo Baggins had last night was too raucous and too loud and kept the whole neighborhood awake well past midnight. What self-respecting Hobbit consorts with Dwarves, anyway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n