Brother, you might.... [_She discovers LOTH and withdraws quickly._] Oh, I beg pardon.

[_Exit._

HOFFMANN

Stay here, do!

LOTH

Your wife?

HOFFMANN

No; her sister. Didn't you hear how she addressed me?

LOTH

No.

HOFFMANN

Good-looking, eh? But now, come on. Make up your mind. Coffee? Tea? Grog?

LOTH

No, nothing, thank you.

HOFFMANN

[_Offers him cigars._] Here's something for you then. No!... Not even that?

LOTH

No, thank you.

HOFFMANN

Enviable frugality! [_He lights a cigar for himself and speaks the while._] The ashes ... I meant to say, tobacco ... h-m ... smoke of course ... doesn't bother you, does it?

LOTH

No.

HOFFMANN

Ah, if I didn't get that much ... Good Lord, life anyhow!--But now, do me a favour; tell me something. Ten years--you've hardly changed much, though--ten years, a nasty slice of time. How's Schn ... Schnurz? That's what we called him, eh? And Fips, and the whole jolly bunch of those days? Haven't you been able to keep your eye on any of them?

LOTH

Look here, is it possible you don't know?

HOFFMANN

What?

LOTH

That he shot himself.

HOFFMANN

Who? Who's done that sort o' thing again?

LOTH

Fips. Friedrich Hildebrandt.

HOFFMANN

Oh come, that's impossible.

LOTH

It's a fact. Shot himself in the Grunewald, on a very beautiful spot on the sh.o.r.e of the Havelsee. I was there. You have a view toward Spandau.

HOFFMANN

Hm. Wouldn't have believed it of him. He wasn't much of a hero in other ways.

LOTH

That's the very reason why he shot himself.--He was conscientious, very conscientious.

HOFFMANN

Conscientious? I don't see.

LOTH

That was the very reason ... otherwise he would probably not have done it.

HOFFMANN

I'm still in the dark.

LOTH

Well, you know what the colour of his political views was?