OK, here goes an attempt:
The literary plum-gatherer is the wizard Artaxerxes in Roverandom.
The literal plum-gatherer is JRRT's brother, Hilary Tolkien, who owned and lived on a fruit farm at Evesham.
Right?
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth.. .'
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