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"Indeed," Dick said, with a something like a sniff. "We hobbits aren't bad at disappearing when we need to, either. Usually you great big folk are so loud in coming that we can make off in a twinkling. Even if I am an innkeeper and may be better fed than most, I myself am not bad at avoiding people when I wish."
His words were met with another of the ranger's silent pauses. Dick felt he had been rude, and although he wasn't in a very obligatory mood and although he did not happen to like this particular customer very much (his dark appearance and quiet evasiveness put him on edge), he sought immediately to amend it.
“I do hope you find some company in there round abouts that you don’t mind being with. As my grandmum always used to say, ‘Them as sit by themselves in a corner wither away until they die by themselves.’ Why, I once knew a hobbit, Toby Harfoot, by name, who used to go off fishing all by himself. What came of him, no one quite knows, but one day he never came back. Some say a fish pulled him right into the river and he drowned. I say, it would never have happened if he hadn’t stuck around by himself all the time. It’s not healthy for a body, I say. Why don’t you come over and meet the lady ranger?”
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