Don't let us keep you.
HELEN bows and withdraws.
HOFFMANN
[Holding a match case in his hand and walking over to the cigar-box which stands on the table.] There's no doubt … you do get a man excited … it's almost uncanny. [He takes a cigar from the box and sits down on the sofa in the foreground, left. He cuts off the end of his cigar, and, during what follows, he holds the cigar in his left, the severed end between the fingers of his right hand.] In spite of all that … it does amuse me. And then, you don't know how good it feels to pass a few days in the country this way, away from all business matters. If only to-day this confounded … how late is it anyhow? Unfortunately I have to go into town to a dinner to-day. It couldn't be helped: I had to give this banquet. What are you going to do as a business man? Tit for tat. The mine officials are used to that sort of thing.—Well, I've got time enough to smoke another cigar—quite in peace, too.
[He carries the cigar end to a cuspidor, sits down on the sofa again and lights his cigar.]
LOTH
[Stands at the table and turns the leaves of a deluxe volume.] "The Adventures of Count Sandor."
HOFFMANN
You'll find that trash among all the farmers in the neighbourhood.