Narrator: It is early morning in the lands known as the Shire. A mother hobbit works to start a fire to cook breakfast in a small hobbit hole that has certainly seen better days. Her newborn baby is slung close to her as she goes about her chores. Unexpectedly, company appears at the door.

Baby Lotho: (crying)
Thorin: Ahem.
Lobelia: Ohhh!
[WHUMP]
Lobelia: Who are you?
Thorin: We are three dwarves of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain.
Lobelia: What?!
Thorin: We are three dwarves.
Lobelia: Well, what are you doing creeping around hobbit holes at this hour of the morning?
Balin: We are adventurers.
Thorin: We have come from the East following the signs left to guide us in search of the hobbit named Baggins that lives here.
Lobelia: Is this some kind of joke?
Dwalin: We need to take him with us.
Balin: He is to be the lucky number!
Thorin: We have it on excellent authority from a most reknown wizard that his accompanying us is key to our reclaiming my lost kingdom.
Lobelia: Wizard? You're all drunk. It's disgusting. Out! The lot-- out!
Thorin: No--
Lobelia: Bursting in here with tales about magicians and lonely bears... Come on-- out!
Dwalin: No, no. We must take him.
Lobelia: Go and grab someone else's brat! Go on!
Dwalin: We--
Thorin: We were sent here by Gandalf the Grey.
Lobelia: Or led by a bottle, more like. Go on. Out!
Thorin: Well-- well, we must take him. We wish to give him a one fourteenth share of the treasure.
Lobelia: Out!
Dwalin: Gold. Silver. Mithril.
(pause)
Lobelia: Well, why didn't you say? Here he is. Sorry the place is a bit of a mess. Well... what is mithril, anyway?
Balin: It is an extremely rare alloy.
Lobelia: An alloy!? What are you giving him an alloy for? It might bite him.
Balin: What?
Lobelia: That's a dangerous animal, that is!
Thorin: No, it isn't.
Lobelia: Yes, it is. It's great, big-- ummm...
Balin: No, no, no. It is a type of metal.
Lobelia: Aww-- there is an animal called an alloy... or did I dream it? So, you're adventurers, are you? Well, what is he then?
Dwalin: Hmm?
Lobelia: What adventurer class is he?
Thorin: Uh, burglar.
Lobelia: Uhh, burglar, eh? What are they like?
Thorin: Ooh, well... he burgles things. Sneaks into places others might not be able to go.
Balin: A thief.
Lobelia: Ohh-- Thief class, is it?
Dwalin: Uh... no, actually. The class was changed to rogue with the start of the third edition rules-- errr... age. Third age.
Balin: Whatever. A rogue, then.
Lobelia: Ohh, I was going to say... rogue sounds much more respectible. Dashing, even!
[sniff]
Thorin: By what name are you calling him?
Lobelia: Uh, Lotho. Lotho Sackville-Baggins.
Thorin: Burglar Lotho, our terms are cash on delivery... up to and not exceeding one fourteenth of total profits, all travelling expenses guaranteed and funeral expenses to be defrayed by us or our representatives if the occasion arises and the matter is not otherwise--
Lobelia: Do you do a lot of this, then?
Thorin: What?
Lobelia: This hiring of infants.
Balin: No, no. No, no.
Lobelia: Well, ummm-- if you're dropping by again, do pop in. Heh... and he should get any silver spoons you come across in that treasure you mentioned. Errr... but don't worry too much about the mithril. All right? Heh. Thank you. Good-bye.
(the Dwarves leave with the baby Lotho)
Lobelia: Well, wasn't that nice? Hmmm. Out of their bloody minds, but still... they got that brat out of my hair at least.
(outside the Sackville-Baggins smial)
Gandalf: Thorin Oakenshield! What in blazes are you doing with that infant?!
Thorin: Wha-- but... I thought--
Gandalf: You've obviously gone in the exact opposite direction my last rune marker pointed!
Dwalin: Told you.
Balin: Oh, stuff it!
(the Dwarves rush back in and shove baby Lotho into Lobelia's arms)
Lobelia: Hey now! Hey! He is, he's-- he's going with you! What if I drop the spoons stipulation?! Oh-- come on!
[WHUMP]
Baby Lotho: (crying)
Lobelia: Shut up.
[SMACK]