[Kransha]

Toby smiled cunningly and tossed his newfound wealth up in the air, catching it nimbly a moment later. The man was too busy tending to the woman to notice the loss he’d sustained. Tobias had scurried out, as thriftily as ever, as soon as the two began their conversation anew. They hadn’t bothered to follow, and he hadn’t expected that they would. He knew it was rude, especially in a private area, to barge in unannounced on people, but he didn’t give his respect to foreigners, and that justified fifty percent of his actions. He couldn’t justify the stealing, but it was a too addictive habit to give up, and he profited by it greatly whenever he was succesful in it.

He ambled, feigning weariness, back to the common room and found himself a chair by the fire to sit in, tucking his findings neatly into one of his many coat pockets. He leaned back again, sighing melodramatically, and whipped out his pipe. He looked around the dim room again, seeing some familiar and new faces. The sight that caught his eye was the large table manned by that stern gentlehobbit Halfred, and the lass called Asphodel. He remembered the food he’d gotten out of that encounter, but decided not to try again, since it was obvious that those hobbits didn’t think to highly of him. He resigned himself to eavesdropping on their conversation, which was no crime in a public inn. He swiveled his chair over and reclined further, his ears twitching strangely as he acoustically adjusted to listen in on their discourse. He began to pick up snippets of the dialogue between them.

He overheard little at first, but slowly edged his chair closer, swiping a rusty tin mug filled with frothing ale from a nearby table, as of yet uninhabited. He took a great swig and lowered the mug onto his knee as his ears began to twitch more. The ear movement was just another one of his quirks, though many other citizens of Longbottom and the Hornblower family shared this idiosyncrasy, along with many other hobbits in the Southfarthing.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 4:13 PM February 04, 2004: Message edited by: Kransha ]