Meet Tomug Bombadillatté
Both half-caffs took the time to do some serious panicking. Nothing they said or did would make the evil percolator to regurgitate their hapless cohorts.
Finally, NescaFrodo began to scream for help.
Instantly, and to both NescaFrodo and Sanka's surprise, a strange voice answered. Something big was coming through the trees, singing in a strange language.
Frodo abruptly stopped yelling for help, and tapped Sam on the shoulder, pointing toward the path. A strange man, if indeed a man it was, had come out of the bushes and was staring at the scene. He was dressed bizarrely in lederhosen and cream-coloured linen, and he had socks of shocking yellow, contrasting in a retina-burning way with his electric blue fedora. He was carrying a travel-cup that was steaming gently.
"Help!" cried NescaFrodo and Sanka, running toward the stranger with their hands outstretched.
"Whoa! Steady there! You'll spill my coffee!" Tomug Bombadillatté said, and the hobbits froze.
"My friends are caught in the espresso machine!" said NescaFrodo desperately.
"Master MochaMerry is being cold-pressed!"
"What!" shouted Tomug, leaping into the air. His coffee slopped over his hand, unnoticed. "I know the brew for him! Old Espresso Man! I'll freeze his beans! I'll steam his milk, if he don't behave himself! I'll pull his plug! Old Espresso Man!"
NescaFrodo and Sanka back away from the man, who they now suspected to be utterly mad, and then they turned and ran for their lives.
A half-mile away, they came to a stop, panting. "It's a shame about Master MochaMerry and Mr. Drippin," said Sanka, wiping away his tears. "How can we leave them behind?"
"It's us or them, Sanka," said NescaFrodo. "I gotta get rid if this coffee-ring, and that means extreme measures. They can catch us up in Brie, if they can get away from that caffinated wildman. I just hope some giant doesn't grind their beans to make his brew."
MochaMerry and Drippin come running up behind, and they pause for breath for a moment before beating the tar out of NescaFrodo and Sanka.
"That's for leaving us behind, you two krappachinos!" said MochaMerry as he gives NescaFrodo a furious noogie, holding him firmly in a headlock.
"Lucky that Javajunkie came along, though," added Drippin, while dunking Sanka in a nearby handy rainbarrel, "Now we can go have elevenses with you at Rivendell Perk!"
"We've got to get through The Big Old Cemetery Full Of Hungry Ghosts, first," said NescaFrodo, once his cousin had released him. He tried to smooth down his mussed hair, then stopped when remembered that it was that way normally.