The thing is, Bilbo has no practical experience of the outside world by the time he finds his first real adventure with the trolls in the forest. But he has read a lot of tales and legends, so he knows how his story is supposed to go. He decides that, as a burglar, he has to pick Bill the Troll's pocket – he can't go back to Thorin "emptyhanded." And, of course, he winds up getting captured. Are there other examples in The Hobbit where Bilbo makes decisions based on his assumptions or other people's expectations? Or does he learn his lesson with this trollish disaster? What can Bilbo's decision in this passage tell us about his character at this point of the novel?

For much of Bilbo's journey, home seems to exist primarily as an idea to taunt him: he didn't seem truly eager to leave it in the first place, and now all he wants is to be "at home in [his] nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!" Why do you think Bilbo decided to accompany Thorin & Co. on their trip to the Lonely Mountain? Could he have turned them down?

Even though Bilbo mostly feels inferior to the dwarves when he first joins their company, he still has some interesting racial pride as a hobbit. He's constantly trying to prove himself to the dwarves, as when he tries to steal Bill the Troll's wallet. But here, he's sniffing "more than once at what he called 'all this dwarvish racket.'" These odd moments when Bilbo's perspective is suddenly represented as alien to our own (because we wouldn't have "noticed anything at all on a windy night") draw the reader's attention to the fact that Bilbo is not human, and that his judgments may not be entirely predictable. It's a nice, low-key way to remind the reader that Bilbo is, in fact, a hobbit, and not just a short, pudgy man.