Certain Advantages

There are certain advantages to being born a Brandybuck, to living off toward the edge of things and not too near the center, to having a bit of the Old Forest creep into your nursery tales now and again, to having a certain tolerance for strangeness; certain advantages that might let a Hobbit, say, just step quickly off the lane without losing his head, even when he might have just seen his respectable cousin Bilbo disappear into thin air; even though he might have seen a bit of gold glint and think to himself “now that’ll bear some looking into!”







Notes:
"One day, a year before the Party, I happened to be walking along the road, when I saw Bilbo ahead. Suddenly in the distance, the [Sackville-Bagginses] appeared, coming towards us. Bilbo slowed down, and then hey presto! he vanished. I was so startled that I hardly had the wits to hide myself in a more ordinary fashion; but I got through the hedge and walked along the field inside. I was peeping through into the road, after the S.-B.s had passed, and was looking straight at Bilbo when he suddenly reappeared. I caught a glint of gold as he put something back in his trouser-pocket."
--- Merry
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of The Ring, 'A Conspiracy Unmasked'