The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien

The two young hobbits who got on the table and danced are still Prospero Brandybuck and Melba Took, but Melba was changed in pencil first to Arabella and then to Amanda.

      Bingo now said, as did Bilbo in FR (p. 38), ‘I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.’

      Bingo’s ‘second purpose’ is expressed in exactly the words written into the second version (see p. 27): ‘to celebrate OUR birthdays: mine and my honourable and gallant father’s. I am only half the man he is: I am 72, and he is 144’, &c.

      Bingo’s last words, ‘I am leaving after dinner’ were corrected on the manuscript to ‘I am leaving now.’

(25) The collected comments after Bingo’s concluding remarks now begin: ‘The hobbit’s mad. Always said so. And his father. He’s been dead 33 years, I know. 144, all rubbish.’ And Rory Brandybuck shouts: ‘Where is Bilbo – confound it, Bingo I mean. Where is he?’

After ‘he was never seen in Hobbiton again’ is added: ‘The ring was his father’s parting gift.’

From the point where the second version ends at the words ‘Morning went on’ the third goes back to the original draft (p. 15) and follows it closely until near the end, using pretty well the same phrases, and largely retaining the original list (as emended, p. 17 note 5) of names and labels for the recipients of presents from Bag End – these being now, of course, presents from Bilbo’s son Bingo.

      Semolina Baggins is called ‘an aunt, or first cousin once removed’;

      Caramella Took (changed later to Bolger) ‘had been favoured among [Bingo’s] junior and remoter cousins’;

      Obo Took-Took who received a feather-bed remained as a great-uncle, but Obo was emended on the manuscript to Rollo;

      Gorboduc (> Orlando) Grubb of the first draft, recipient of a gold fountain-pen, becomes Orlando Burrowes;

      Mungo Took, Inigo Grubb-Took, and Angelica Baggins remain; and two new beneficiaries are named before Mrs Sackville-Baggins at the end of the list:

      For the collection of Hugo Bracegirdle, from a contributor: on an (empty) bookcase. Hugo was a great borrower of books, but a small returner.

      For Cosimo Chubb, treat it as your own, Bingo: on the barometer. Cosimo used to bang it with a large fat finger whenever he came to call. He was afraid of getting wet, and wore a scarf and macintosh all the year round.

      For Grimalda [> Lobelia] Sackville-Baggins, as a present: on a case of silver spoons. It was believed by Bilbo Baggins that she had acquired a good many of his spoons while he was away – ninety odd years before. Bingo inherited the belief, and Grimalda [> Lobelia] knew it.

It is also mentioned that ‘Bingo had very carefully disposed of his treasures: books, pictures, and a collection of toys. For his wines he found a very good (if temporary) home. Most of them went to Marmaduke Brandybuck’ (predecessor of Meriadoc). The original draft is closely followed in the absence of any money or jewelry, and in the legal notice disposing of Bag End to the Sackville-Bagginses (but Bilbo’s cousin now becomes Otho, and their occupancy is to start from September 24th) – ‘and they got Bag-end after all, though they had to wait 93 years longer for it than they had once expected’: 111 less 51 plus 33, see pp. 31–2.⁸ Sancho Proudfoot appears, excavating in the pantry where he thought there was an echo (as in FR, p. 48); physically attacked by Otho Sackville-Baggins, he was only finally ejected by the lawyers, first called ‘Grubbs and Burrowes’, as in The Hobbit, then changed to ‘Messrs. Iago Grubb and Folco Burrowes (Bingo’s lawyers)’.

      The conclusion of the third version I give in full.

      The fact is Bingo’s money had become a legend, and everybody was puzzled and anxious – though still hopeful. How he would have laughed. Indeed he was as near laughing as he dared at that very moment, for he was inside a large cupboard outside the dining-room door, and heard most of the racket. He was inside, of course, not for concealment, but to avoid being bumped into, being totally invisible. He had to laugh rather privately and silently, but all the same he was enjoying his joke: it was turning out so much like his expectation.

I suppose it is now becoming all too plain to everyone but the anxious and grabsome hobbits. The fact is that (in spite of certain things in his after-dinner speech) Bingo had grown suddenly tired of them all. A violent fit of Tookishness had come over him – not of course that all Tooks had much of this wayward quality, their mothers being Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Grubbs and what not; but Tooks were on the whole the most jocular and unexpected of Hobbits. Also I can tell you something more, in case you have not guessed: Bingo had no money or jewelry left! Practically none, that is. Nothing worth digging up a nice hobbit-hole for. Money went a prodigious way in those days, and one could get quite a lot of things without it; but he had blown his last 500 ducats on the birthday party. That was Brandybucksome of him. After that he had nothing left but the buttons on his waistcoat, a small bag-purse of silver, and his ring. In the course of 33 years he had contrived to spend all the rest – what was left, that is, by his father, who had done a bit of spending in fifty years⁹ (and had required some travelling-expenses).

Well, there it is. All things come to an end. Evening came on. Bag-end was left empty and gloomy. People went away – haggling and arguing, most of them. You could hear their voices coming up the Hill in the dusk. Very few gave a thought to Bingo. They decided he had gone mad, and run off, and that was one Baggins the less, and that was that. They were annoyed about the legendary money, of course, but meanwhile there was tea waiting for them. There were some, of course, who regretted his sudden disappearance – a few of his younger friends were really distressed. But not all of them had said good-bye to him. That is easily explained, and soon will be.

      Bingo stepped out of the cupboard. It was getting dim. His watch said six. The door was open, as he had kept the key in his pocket. He went out, locked the door (leaving the key), and looked at the sky. Stars were coming out.

      ‘It is going to be a fine night,’ he said. ‘What a lark! Well, I must not keep them waiting. Now we’re off. Goodbye!’ He trotted down the garden, jumped the fence, and took to the fields, and passed like an invisible rustle in the grasses.

NOTES

       1 I find it difficult to believe this, yet if it is not so the coincidence is strange. If Bingo Baggins did get his name from this source, I can only suppose that the demonic character (composed of monomaniac religious despotism and a lust for destruction through high explosive) of the chief Bingo (not to mention that of his appalling wife), by which my sister and I now remember them, developed somewhat later.

2 The substitution was not made in the first draft, but in pencilled corrections