[_Permitting himself to be helped on with the coat._] So-o! [_Sitting down on a chair._] Now the boots. [_After he has pulled on one of them._] There's number one! LOTH Perhaps you didn't quite understand me after all. HOFFMANN Surely, that's quite possible. A fellow gets out of touch with things. Nothing but musty business affairs. Edward, hasn't the mail come yet? Wait a minute!--Do go up into my room. You'll find a document in a blue cover on the left side of my desk. Get that and put it into the carriage. _EDWARD goes through the door at the right, reappears through the middle-door and then withdraws._ LOTH I simply meant that you hadn't understood me in one particular respect. HOFFMANN [_Worrying his foot into the other shoe._] Ouch! There! [_He rises and stamps his feet._] There we are. Nothing is more disagreeable than tight shoes ... What were you saying just now? LOTH You were speaking of my departure ... HOFFMANN Well? LOTH But I thought I had explained that I must stay here for a specific purpose. HOFFMANN [_In extreme consternation and thoroughly indignant at once._] Look here!... That comes near being caddish!--Don't you know what you owe me as your friend? LOTH Not, I hope, the betrayal of my cause! HOFFMANN [_Beside himself._] Well then--in that case--I haven't the slightest motive for treating you as a friend. And so I tell you that I consider your appearance and demeanour here--to put it mildly--incredibly impudent. LOTH [_Quite calmly._] Perhaps you'll explain what gives you the right to use such epithets ... HOFFMANN Yon want an explanation of that? That is going to an extreme! Not to feel a thing like that it's necessary to have a rhinoceros-hide instead of skin on one's back! You come here, enjoy my hospitality, thresh out a few of your thread-bare phrases, turn my sister-in-law's head, go on about old friendship and other pleasant things, and then you tell me quite coolly: you're going to write a descriptive pamphlet about the local conditions. Why, what do you take me to be, anyhow? D'you suppose I don't know that these so-called essays are merely shameless libels?... You want to write a denunciation like that, and about our coal district, of all places! Are you so blind that you can't see whom such a rag would harm most keenly? Only me, of course! I tell you, the trade that you demagogues drive ought to be more firmly stamped out than has been done up to now! What is it you do? You make the miners discontented, presumptuous; you stir them up, embitter them, make them rebellious, disobedient, wretched! Then you delude them with promises of mountains of gold, and, in the meantime, grab out of their pockets the few pennies that keep them from starving! LOTH Do you consider yourself unmasked now? HOFFMANN