[_HELEN and HOFFMANN exchange a look of infinite comprehension and
laugh. Then, by a common impulse, they look at LOTH._

HOFFMANN

[_To LOTH._] Rustic simplicity!

_MRS. KRAUSE appears, incredibly overdressed. Silk and costly jewels.
Her dress and bearing betray hard arrogance, stupid pride and
half-mad vanity._

HOFFMANN

Ah, there is mama! Permit me to introduce to you my friend Dr. Loth.

MRS. KRAUSE

[_Half-curtsies, peasant-fashion._] I take the liberty! [_After a brief
pause._] Eh, but Doctor, you mustn't bear me a grudge, no, you mustn't at
all. I've got to excuse myself before you right away--[_she speaks with
increasing fluency_]--excuse myself on account o' the way I acted a while
ago. You know, y'understan', we' get a powerful lot o' tramps here right
along ... 'Tain't reasonable to believe the trouble we has with them
beggars. And they steals exackly like magpies. It ain't as we're stingy.
We don't have to be thinkin' and thinkin' before we spends a penny, no,
nor before we spends a pound neither. Now, old Louis Krause's wife, she's
a close one, worst kind you see, she wouldn't give a crittur that much!
Her old man died o' rage because he lost a dirty little two-thousand,
playin' cards. No, we ain't that kind. You see that sideboard over there.