_] A labourer is worthy of his hire. But now,
Loth, have the goodness to tell me what the gentlemen in question....
LOTH
I dare say they talked nonsense.
HOFFMANN
Tell me in spite of that, please. I'm simply interested, quite simply
interested--that's all.
LOTH
They discussed the fact that you had violently forced another man out of
his position here--a contractor named Mueller.
HOFFMANN
_Of_ course! The same old story.
LOTH
The man, they said, was betrothed to your present wife.
HOFFMANN
So he was. And what else?
LOTH
I tell you these things just as I heard them, for I assume that it is of
some importance to you to be acquainted with the exact nature of the
slander.
HOFFMANN
Quite right. And so?
LOTH
So far as I could make out this Mueller was said to have had the contract
for the construction of a stretch of mountain railroad here.
HOFFMANN
Yes, with a wretched capital of ten thousand crowns. When he came to see
that the money wouldn't go far enough, he was in haste to make a catch of
one of the Witzdorf farmers' daughters; the honour was to have fallen to
my wife.
LOTH
They said that he had his arrangement with the daughter, and you had made
yours with the father.
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