“Roly?” said Tom.  They’d had two beers already in the Oak Barrel, and this wasn’t getting any easier.

“Yes?” said Roly.

Tom could feel himself going red.  “I think I’m in love with Kira,” he said, and he immediately took a long pull of ale.

“You only think so?” said Roly.  “If it’s such an awful thing, why don’t you think yourself out of it?”

“All right!  I know I am, but I don’t know what to do about it!”

Roly sighed.  “Traditionally, you court her, and if you’re not yet thirty, which you aren’t, you let her know you’re interested in other ways.”

Tom’s blush went deeper.  “What if I already have?”

“Well, then, good for you—oh.  You meant, you already have and not in a good way?”

Tom nodded.  “I got drunk at the Tree Party, and I might have told her she had a fabulous bosom, because she does, only then I realized I’d told her that so I had to say I was sorry, but she didn’t remember me telling her that and so that got her to thinking, and somehow she puzzled it out and asked me if I fancied her and I said I didn’t, because I couldn’t just tell her that I do, and now she’s even more suspicious and I don’t know what to do!”

Roly took another drink.  “And you’re asking for help now?”

Tom nodded.

“Do you know when you should have asked for help first?”

“When?...”

“‘Say, Roly!  Do you think we should get another round?’”

“Yes!” said Tom.  “It’s a capital idea!”

“Not now…”

Tom buried his head on the bar.  “What am I supposed to do?”

Roly clapped his hand on his back.  “What normal, grown hobbits do when they realize they’ve messed up—come clean.”

“Roly, I can’t do that!  Kira hates me!”

“Has she ever told you that herself?”

“No…”

“Then trust that she doesn’t.”

“Roly, what if I can’t?”

“Then, Tolman, you’re an idiot.”

And Tom probably was, because the next time he talked to her he lost his nerve entirely.