Sam sipped at his own beer contemplatively. "I'll teach you one for your own, Ted. Five lines you might just master, in a year."

"Least I ain't putting on no airs, a-running after summat from the big smial as I can't have."

Sam choked. It was a lucky thing Ted was a stupid brute who couldn't see past silk waistcoats and silver spoons; he would never guess how close he was to the awful truth. Bag End's finest treasure was its master's sweet face, and Sam yearned more greedily for it daily, unworthy as he was. Sam finished his beer and left the Drago n with no more than a hateful glance at Ted.

He was standing by the back wall, looking out at the Hill when Ted appeared again. "You'd do best to stop getting above yourself, Samwise. Mr. Frodo and all might dangle poetry in front of your nose, but they'll never let you have naught."

"I'll teach you a better lesson than any song if you don't get on your way."

Ted's face loomed up between Sam and the Hill. It seemed he did want a fight. "You're a fool, Sam Gamgee, though I'm not the first to say so --"

Sam shoved at him. "Leave me be, Ted Sandyman. Just you leave me be."

Abruptly Ted lunged in and his mouth crushed up against Sam's. Ted's hands fumbled down Sam's sides as if searching for hidden gold.

Ted must have guessed after all, to taunt him so, would poison Hobbiton behind him.

Sam trampled flowers running home.

That Sam Gamgee, with his poetry and his great doe's eyes, he thought himself above a miller's son. Well, he'd be back from Crickhollow one day, then he'd see. Millers could get rich too, and without no dragon horde neither. And money could buy book learning, see if it couldn't.

That night Ted began, in clumsy lines of chalk on slate, to draw the beautiful new mill that would win Sam's heart for him.