1 Lambert: That escape from the caverns reminds me of the time my Uncle Bilbert escaped from a human prison.
1 Mordekai: Oh?
2 Lambert: There was no way he could bend the iron bars of his cell. But there was something else he'd done many times before.
3 Lambert: He gripped a bar in both hands, then pulled the upper part to the right and the lower part to the left. He ripped the bar clean in twain!
4 Mordekai: Wow, really?
4 Lambert: Yes. You should never underestimate the strength of shear force of hobbit.

A kind reader sent in the germ of this idea, but expressed it in terms of Uncle Bilbert escaping tormenters by using an "Indian burn". This term was unfamiliar to me, until I Googled it, and found it was an American name for what I grew up knowing as a "Chinese burn". Given the difference in regional terminology among the English-speaking world and the fact that either version could these days be interpreted by some as having racial overtones, I decided to reconfigure the gag.