9/10/2000

Tolkien: Well, I haven't sold that trilogy yet. Maybe a children's book as a prequel?

Mrs. Tolkien: A children's book! But, J.R., you *scare* children. Even little Chris can barely look at you without sobbing!

Tolkien: Nonsense; the boy's just not used to the graduate students that follow me around. They are rather scary, what with their red eyes and long teeth. They should get more sun.

Mrs. Tolkien: I don't know, J.R. What do you know about children?

Tolkien: I know they like cute, dwarfish fuzzy creatures. Young Chris likes that Teddy Roosevelt bear the nanny got him, doesn't he?

Mrs. Tolkien: J.R., that *is* the nanny. It's not her fault she's from Mancester.

Tolkien: Jolly good. The book will be about a hideous hair-covered forty-nine year-old agorophobe like her.

Mrs. Tolkien: J.R.! That's horrible!

Tolkien: It's not horrible; it's folklore! Good old English folklore is full of tales of tiny half-bestial things living in rat-infested stables and servant's quarters, drinking milk, milking the goats, making shoes and cleaning up. You know, charming peasant things.

Mrs. Tolkien: J.R., really! A children's book? About linguistics and starring a middle-aged bogart?

Tolkien: Well, yes. We could put the graduate students in it. They'd make jolly good villains.

Graduate Students: Rrrrgh!

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