Mr. Lightfoot had been a solicitor for many years, but he had never seen a hobbit with so much spite as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.  What was more, he knew the root cause of it all—he had been the one that had looked into wills and precedent and drafted up the means by which Frodo Baggins had cheated her out of her inheritance (so, he imagined, she would put it).

Mr. Lightfoot wished that he had only been acting in the interest of his client, but the fact was that no one really wanted to see a Sackville-Baggins in Bag End.  When Frodo had regretfully informed him of his decision to sell his house (as well as asked him to draft up a very mysterious will), Mr. Lightfoot could see all his years of effort going to naught.

And ever since then, the Sackville-Bagginses had had it in for him.  When the Troubles started, the first folks that got locked up were his clients, and when he tried to speak out in defense of them, they actually got Shirriffs to break into his office at night and bar the way for him in the morning.  He had been without income ever since, and it was a mercy that others were willing to take him in—before that was against the rules.  Seeing as he didn’t want to be locked up himself, Mr. Lightfoot just took what was dealt him.  The only joy in that time was when Lobelia herself was locked up—but by then it was too late for it to make any difference.

Now that the Travellers were back, though, and the Lockholes unlocked, Lobelia was back to bother him.  He wouldn’t even have seen her into his office if he weren’t desperate for the money.

“I would like,” she said, “to draft a deed gifting Bag End to Frodo Baggins, and to make a new will.”

Mr. Lightfoot stared at her as if a toad had just crawled out of her mouth.  “And why should I do that, pray tell?”

“Because,” she said, a fiery glint in her eye, “I am trying to make amends here, and hardly anyone wants to let me, and—well, my own solicitor’s been barred from practice for a time.”

“Very well—and if I were to draft a will for you, what should it say?”

“That in the event of my death I’m giving all to Frodo Baggins, for him to use at his discretion to help those who lost their homes during the troubles.”

Mr. Lightfoot sat down at his desk, and thought a moment.  “That’s not terribly characteristic of you, if you don’t mind my being so bold, Mrs. Sackville-Baggins.”

“Perhaps not—but I hope that I have grown some character in the past year.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Lobelia.  Folk may think I coerced or forged the change—they know we have a history.  But I know a hobbit or three that knows a thing about the law, and if you can give them my recommendation, they just may change their minds…”