This is a story told by BH at the Green Dragon Inn, Bywater, on 14th August 2020. As far as is known it is simply a story, and not derived from any actual events.
(Adapted from The Smile that Wins, by PG Wodehouse.)
There was once a hobbit who was fond of his food, and his name was Mondo Trencherman. He liked to have nine meals every day: three breakfasts, three lunches, and three dinners. And so he lived, happily and well, until one day some of Lotho's Sackville cousins moved in next door.
Late one night, after eating three especially excellent dinners, and polishing off his after-supper morsel, he went to bed.
But he couldn't sleep for the sound of Aconita Sackville upbraiding her husband, and telling her children off: calling them all perfectly true and applicable names in a remarkably loud voice.
Mondo suddenly felt ill. It was as if a whole box of Gandalf's best fireworks had suddenly gone off in his chest. He leapt about the room, screaming and wailing and fizzing about, and terrified he was going to start shooting off sparks at any moment.
Then he ran screaming out the door and down the road three miles to the next village: where he went banging on the door of old Gammer Wisewort, who was known throughout the Farthing for being able to fix everyone's ailments. 'I'm dying, Gammer!' he cried, and told her the problem.
'Deary me, Mondo,' she said with a laugh, as she stood on the doorstep in her fluffy slippers and dressing gown. 'You've just got a touch of indigestion. There's nothing to worry about!'
'Indigestion!' howled Mondo in horror. 'But I'm a hobbit, hobbits don't get indigestion! Are you sure it isn't the plague, or a heart attack, or ebola, or something reassuring like that?'
But she said it was definitely indigestion, whether he was a hobbit or not. And he pleaded with her to cure him. So she told him he should eat less, just six meals a day like everybody else.
But of course, Mondo wouldn't hear of it.
So she thought for a while; whistling to herself, and tapping her feet on the doormat. 'Well,' said Gammer Wisewort, 'perhaps you just need to cheer up a bit, try to think some happy thoughts and maybe the problem will go away.'
'Happy thoughts!' howled Mondo. 'How can I think happy thoughts when I have Aconita Sackville living next door?' And she had to agree that he had a point.
'Well then,' she said, after another long ponder. 'How about you try smiling then. Whenever one of those goblin-barkers goes off under your breastbone, put a happy smile on your face; and that might help you to think the happy thoughts that will make the fireworks go away.'
'What, like this?' said Mondo, giving it his best, and coming up with the sort of smile you might see on the face of a hungry dragon sneaking into a bankers' conference.
'Yes, well, er, close enough,' said Gammer Wisewort; who found the smile rather disturbing, but really really wanted to go back to bed. And then she added: 'Goodnight,' and shut the door in his face as politely as she could.
So Mondo walked back home in the moonlight, practising his smile. And by the time he got home the fireworks had all gone away, so he went to bed and slept till morning.
The next day all was well: Mondo got up, and ate his three breakfasts, and his three lunches, and his three dinners, and then he went out for his after dinner walk.
Which was just when Aconita was putting her children to bed, and they weren't going nicely, and her husband was too busy smoke-ing his pipe to help. Aconita's complaints could be heard halfway from that Farthing to the next.
Just at that very moment an especially nasty dwarf-candle went off in Mondo's ribs; so bad it was that he leapt three ways across the street and back.
As it chanced, at that very moment a particularly horrible brigand came creeping along; one of the Big Folk who hides out across the stream south of Woodhall. He was on the prowl, lurking behind hedges, and looking for a lone hobbit to mug, and he thought to himself: 'This one'll do nicely!' And he stepped out from the hedge, hefting his biggest club.
Mondo remembered what Gammer Wisewort had told him, so he let fly with the very best smile he could manage, and as the brigand came up he caught it broadside on. It was quite a smile that one: the kind you see on a troll as he offers you a cup of tea, while his two mates are coming up behind you.
The brigand dropped his club and leapt back into the hedge, where he got stuck. 'Oh hello!' said Mondo cheerfully. 'Are you alright there? Do you need any help?'
'Why are you smiling like that?' asked the brigand, as he desperately struggled to try and free himself. 'It's just because I have indigestion,' said Mondo.
But the brigand knew that hobbits don't get indigestion, and realised the dreadful truth: this evil sinister hobbit was leering at him with delight, because he was stuck in a hedge, and the hobbit's two troll friends were coming up behind him.
'Oh!' said the brigand. 'Would you like a bag of gold? It just so happens that I have one on me, and I don't really need it: so perhaps you could have it. Just as a favour to me, you understand, to help lighten my load.' Mondo thought this was rather strange, but he did quite like the idea of having a bag of gold, and knew that the Big Folk can be a bit odd sometimes.
So he said yes, and the brigand gave him the bag of gold, and Mondo felt so happy his indigestion went away. And so did the brigand, right out of the Shire, and he never came back.
'Now Mondo had a whole bag of gold. He was delighted. He could afford to get married, and he had just the girl in mind. Her name was Dulcinea, and the very next day he went round to ask her.
And she said yes. So they went out for lunch, or rather three lunches, three very large lunches. And afterwards she took him to meet her father, Groucho.
Now Groucho was of such a sweet temper, that on his good days he was only slightly grumpier than Matzo; with a toothache, after someone has stolen all the pies. But this was not one of his good days. When he saw Mondo with Dulcinea he went mad, and started roaring, and went for his walking stick with the extra heavy knob.
'We're going to get married,' said Mondo. But Groucho was not impressed: his brows sunk down over his eyes, and he raised the walking stick up.
Which was exactly when Mondo's lunches set off a couple of thunderclaps, and a rather sparksome elf-fountain, right under his diaphragm. Mondo, remembering Gammer Wisewort's advice, was very careful to smile: the kind of smile you might expect to see on the face of a Black Rider, who has just cornered a ring-bearing hobbit in a dark alley.
'Why are you smiling like that?' asked Groucho. 'Because I have indigestion,' replied Mondo. 'But hobbits don't get indigestion!' said Groucho.
And then he suddenly remembered the large collection of stolen pies, which were hidden away in his cold room, having been delivered by Sharkey's men last week. How could Mondo possibly have known his guilty secret? But what other conceivable explanation could there be for him smiling like that?
'Of course my boy!' said Groucho. 'Marry the girl. Be my guest. And here, have a purse of silver to pay for the wedding.' And then he ran off to his cellar, to start eating the evidence as quickly as possible.
Mondo was a very happy hobbit, and that night he ate three dinners of notable magnificence to celebrate. And then he went for his after dinner walk, and met Aconita Sackville, whose children were out: tying cats tails together, putting laxative in bowls of dog food, and spraying fungus on other people's cabbages.
At which point a goblin-barker, of more than ordinary fruitiness, went off behind his ribs; and Mondo forced himself to smile. It was the sort of smile that a Dark Lord might wear, if he had just persuaded the King of Numenor to invade the lands of the Valar as a weekend jaunt. Aconita stopped and stared at him.
'Why are you smiling?' she asked. 'Because I have indigestion,' he replied. 'That's ridiculous!' she said. 'Hobbits don't get indigestion!'
Aconita didn't back down for a moment, she didn't even bat an eyelid. She was a Sackville, and Sackvilles don't have consciences (guilty or otherwise), so even the knowingest of smiles have no effect on them whatsoever.
In fact, she responded with a smile of her own: the sort of smile you might see on the face of a spider-queen who, as an aperitif, is about to devour the light of the Two Trees and plunge all Arda into darkness.
Mondo beat a hasty retreat. Then he remembered that he had a bag of gold, and used it to buy his wife a new home in another village, well away from any Sackville neighbours.
And in the end, Mondo and Dulcinea lived happily ever after in their new hobbit hole. And in time, Mondo stopped getting indigestion, and never suffered from it again. Possibly because he had escaped from his Sackville neighbours; or possibly because his wife had persuaded him to only eat six meals a day, like any ordinary sensible hobbit.
The wedding was famously grand: for the vast number of invited guests, the sumptuous delicacy of the viands that groaned upon the tables, and the fact that Gandalf himself presided over the union (as he happened to be in the Shire at the time, and was asked very nicely). And the fireworks display was almost as good as the one on Bilbo's birthday.
The wedding feast was like four feasts, all rolled into one, and Mondo Trencherman outdid himself: eating enough for five ordinary hobbits. Then afterwards he went to lead the wedding dance, and the fireworks display started early; all the way from Mondo's bellybutton to the base of his neck. And he forced himself to smile that happy smile that only Mondo could manage.
At which point, Gandalf tapped him on the shoulder, with a pale and trembling hand, and remarked nervously: 'Er, my dear Mondo, perhaps we could have a word in private. There's no need for anyone else to know, is there?'
The End.
