I am a total abstainer. HOFFMANN And for how long, may one ask, have you gone in for this-- LOTH For life. HOFFMANN [_Throws down his knife and fork and half starts up from his chair._] Well, I'll be ... [_He sits down again._] Now, frankly, you must forgive me, but I never thought you so--childish. LOTH You may call it so if you please. HOFFMANN But how in the world did you get into that kind of thing? HELEN Surely, for such a resolution you must have a very weighty cause--it seems so to me, at least. LOTH Undoubtedly such a reason exists. You probably do not know, Miss Krause, nor you either, Hoffmann, what an appalling part alcohol plays in modern life ... Read Bunge, if you desire to gain an idea of it. I happen to remember the statements of a writer named Everett concerning the significance of alcohol in the life of the United States. His facts cover a space of ten years. In these ten years, according to him, alcohol has devoured directly a sum of three thousand millions of dollars and indirectly of six hundred millions. It has killed three hundred thousand people, it has driven thousands of others into prisons and poor-houses; it has caused two thousand suicides at the least. It has caused the loss of at least ten millions through fire and violent destruction; it has rendered no less than twenty thousand women, widows, and no less than one million children, orphans. Worst of all, however, are the far-reaching effects of alcohol which extend to the third and fourth generation.--Now, had I pledged myself never to marry, I might perhaps drink, but as it is--My ancestors, as I happen to know, were all not only healthy and robust but thoroughly temperate people. Every movement that I make, every hardship that I undergo, every breath that I draw brings what I owe them more deeply home to me. And that, you see, is the point; I am absolutely determined to transmit undiminished to my posterity this heritage which is mine. MRS. KRAUSE Look here, son-in-law, them miners o' ours do drink a deal too much. I guess that's true. KAHL They swills like pigs. HELEN And such, things are hereditary? LOTH There are families who are ruined by it--families of dipsomaniacs. KAHL [_Half to MRS. KRAUSE; half to HELEN._] Your old man--he's goin' it pretty fast, too. HELEN [_White as a sheet, vehemently._] Oh, don't talk nonsense. MRS. KRAUSE Eh, but listen to the impident hussy. You might think she was a princess! You're tryin' to play bein' a grand lady, I s'ppose! That's the way she goes fer her future husband. [_To LOTH, pointing to KAHL._] That's him, you know; they're promised; it's all arranged. HELEN [_Jumping up._] Stop! or ... _Stop_, mother, or I ... MRS. KRAUSE Well, I do declare! Say, Doctor, is that what you call eddication, eh? God knows, I treat her as if she was my own child, but that's a little too much. HOFFMANN [_Soothingly._] Ah, mother, do me the favour.... MRS. KRAUSE