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'An inquisitive lad,' Griffo was now finding out, had been an understatement of a thought. He had never heard so many questions fly from anyone's mouth in so short a time. Then again, it was never any good trying to keep up with young ones. That was something the gaffer had learned from his own children. And now he was getting up there in age, though he would never say it was nearing time for him to give up the ghost.
"Well, Taffy..." he eyed the hobbit boy across from him, and his eyes twinkled a bit as he watched the little hands move from piece to piece. "It's not all that hard. And you've already figured out where to start. That piece you've got now...yes, that one...that's called a pawn, and it's the simplest piece on the board. And, at least in all the times I've played, they're the pieces that go first."
Then Griffo proceeded to tell the young hobbit how each piece was moved, demonstrating as he did. He was pleased to find that the lad could keep himself still, but the gaffer did his best to keep the explanations brief. He was sure that the boy would have quite enough to amuse himself with simply knowing how each piece traveled across the board.
After he explained each piece, he allowed Taffy to move them around the board as he had been shown. The young hobbit looked to Griffo every once in a while to make sure he was doing it right, and the gaffer simply nodded and smiled in encouragement. When Taffy had full knowledge of how to move chess pieces, Griffo decided to learn some more about the boy before he risked plunging into a full lesson on chess playing that he really didn't feel he was up to instructing.
"You do whittlin', lad? You do seem to have a steady hand." He nodded thoughtfully. "I bet you could do some pieces like these justice."
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