"And you take a lady now and then?"
"Yes."
"Particularly during the opera season?"
"Yes. I'm not so selfish as always to indulge in these pleasures alone."
"Very well. Now for the cost. Sometimes the opera is one dollar. So it costs two dollars when you take a lady."
"Which is not very often."
"Will fifty cents a week, averaging the year, meet this expense?"
After thinking for some time, Hoffman said yes, he thought that fifty cents a week would be a fair appropriations.
"Which adds another item of twenty-six dollars a year to your expenses."
"But would you cut off everything?" objected Hoffman. "Is a man to have no recreations, no amusements?"