All throught the books though, whenever his name came up I felt like I had missed or overlooked something important. I can only conclude that Tolkien either mean for Tom B to have a signifigance that went over my head, or Tolkien orignially intended for him to have a part in the books that was later abandoned. (he wrote the books over a period of many years. He could have changed the course of the story many times.)
Also, I didn't give much thought as I read either time to metaphore or allusion. I took the books at complete face value. But stuff like this occurs to me and I wonder if I should have given the story more thought.