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I have to advise anyone who can to read the early drafts of this chapter to see Tolkien's achievement here in context. In short, the early drafts are among the worst things he ever set down on paper, & he got stuck for 6 months at the end of it. Farmer Maggot as a complete psychopath, an interminable dialogue between the hobbits on the disadvantages of living in a two storey house (what if you found you had left your handkerchief upstairs & had to go all the way up there to get it, etc, etc). The final descent into farce - an invisible Bingo wandering round Maggot's parlour, drinking his beer & running off with hat - is truly awful, & one can only dread where the story might have ended up if Tolkien's writers block hadn't intervened to save us.
Comparing that to what we have brings home Tolkien's skill as an artist. The final version is perfect, as has been pointed out so well. One thing did strike me, though, & that's Sam's attitude to Elves on the one hand & to Bucklanders on the other. The elves he is in awe of, even though they are strangers, & one would expect him to be at least suspicious of them. The Bucklanders, on the other hand, he is suspicious of. What's Tolkien saying here about the nature of predudice?
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