initial commit of ebook 165HEADmain

1 files changed, 15111 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/mcteg10.txt b/old/mcteg10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4c5554f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/mcteg10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,15111 @@
+****The Project Gutenberg Etext of McTeague, by Frank Norris****
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+McTeague, by Frank Norris
+
+September, 1994  [Etext #165]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of McTeague, by Frank Norris
+***This file should be named mcteg10.txt or mcteg10.zip**
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, mcteg11.txt.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mcteg10a.txt.
+
+Prepared by Pauline J. Iacono <pauline@ramsey.lib.mn.us>
+nd John Hamm <John_Hamm@MindLink.bc.ca>
+
+Scanned with OmniPage Professional OCR software     
+donated to Project Gutenberg by Caere Corporation   
+1-800-535-7226  Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com>
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.  We
+have this as a goal to accomplish by the end of the year but we
+cannot guarantee to stay that far ahead every month after that.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $4
+million dollars per hour this year as we release some eight text
+files per month:  thus upping our productivity from $2 million.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end
+of the year 2001.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois
+Benedictine College).  (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go
+to IBC, too)
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive
+Director:
+hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet)   hart@uiucvmd   (bitnet)
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext91
+or cd etext92
+or cd etext93
+or cd etext94 [for new books]
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET 0INDEX.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois
+     Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Illinois Benedictine College".
+
+This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney
+Internet (72600.2026@compuserve.com); TEL: (212-254-5093)
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+{Editor's note: The word can~on has been changed to canyon
+in each case.}
+
+McTeague
+A Story of San Francisco
+
+by Frank Norris
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+It was Sunday, and, according to his custom on that day,
+McTeague took his dinner at two in the afternoon at the car
+conductors' coffee-joint on Polk Street.  He had a thick
+gray soup; heavy, underdone meat, very hot, on a cold plate;
+two kinds of vegetables; and a sort of suet pudding, full of
+strong butter and sugar.  On his way back to his office, one
+block above, he stopped at Joe Frenna's saloon and bought a
+pitcher of steam beer.  It was his habit to leave the
+pitcher there on his way to dinner.
+
+Once in his office, or, as he called it on his signboard,
+"Dental Parlors," he took off his coat and shoes, unbuttoned
+his vest, and, having crammed his little stove full of coke,
+lay back in his operating chair at the bay window, reading
+the paper, drinking his beer, and smoking his huge porcelain
+pipe while his food digested; crop-full, stupid, and warm. 
+By and by, gorged with steam beer, and overcome by the heat
+of the room, the cheap tobacco, and the effects of his heavy
+meal, he dropped off to sleep.  Late in the afternoon his
+canary bird, in its gilt cage just over his head, began to
+sing.  He woke slowly, finished the rest of his beer--very
+flat and stale by this time--and taking down his concertina
+from the bookcase, where in week days it kept the company of
+seven volumes of "Allen's Practical Dentist," played upon it
+some half-dozen very mournful airs.
+
+McTeague looked forward to these Sunday afternoons as a
+period of relaxation and enjoyment.  He invariably spent
+them in the same fashion.  These were his only pleasures--to
+eat, to smoke, to sleep, and to play upon his concertina.
+
+The six lugubrious airs that he knew, always carried him
+back to the time when he was a car-boy at the Big Dipper
+Mine in Placer County, ten years before.  He remembered the
+years he had spent there trundling the heavy cars of ore
+in and out of the tunnel under the direction of his father. 
+For thirteen days of each fortnight his father was a steady,
+hard-working shift-boss of the mine.  Every other Sunday he
+became an irresponsible animal, a beast, a brute, crazy with
+alcohol.
+
+McTeague remembered his mother, too, who, with the help of
+the Chinaman, cooked for forty miners.  She was an
+overworked drudge, fiery and energetic for all that, filled
+with the one idea of having her son rise in life and enter a
+profession.  The chance had come at last when the father
+died, corroded with alcohol, collapsing in a few hours.  Two
+or three years later a travelling dentist visited the mine
+and put up his tent near the bunk-house.  He was more or
+less of a charlatan, but he fired Mrs. McTeague's ambition,
+and young McTeague went away with him to learn his
+profession.  He had learnt it after a fashion, mostly by
+watching the charlatan operate.  He had read many of the
+necessary books, but he was too hopelessly stupid to get
+much benefit from them.
+
+Then one day at San Francisco had come the news of his
+mother's death; she had left him some money--not much, but
+enough to set him up in business; so he had cut loose from
+the charlatan and had opened his "Dental Parlors" on Polk
+Street, an "accommodation street" of small shops in the
+residence quarter of the town.  Here he had slowly collected
+a clientele of butcher boys, shop girls, drug clerks, and
+car conductors.  He made but few acquaintances.  Polk Street
+called him the "Doctor" and spoke of his enormous strength. 
+For McTeague was a young giant, carrying his huge shock of
+blond hair six feet three inches from the ground; moving his
+immense limbs, heavy with ropes of muscle, slowly,
+ponderously.  His hands were enormous, red, and covered with
+a fell of stiff yellow hair; they were hard as wooden
+mallets, strong as vises, the hands of the old-time car-boy. 
+Often he dispensed with forceps and extracted a refractory
+tooth with his thumb and finger.  His head was square-cut,
+angular; the jaw salient, like that of the carnivora.
+
+McTeague's mind was as his body, heavy, slow to act,
+sluggish. Yet there was nothing vicious about the man. 
+Altogether he suggested the draught horse, immensely
+strong, stupid, docile, obedient.
+
+When he opened his "Dental Parlors," he felt that his life
+was a success, that he could hope for nothing better.  In
+spite of the name, there was but one room.  It was a corner
+room on the second floor over the branch post-office, and
+faced the street. McTeague made it do for a bedroom as well,
+sleeping on the big bed-lounge against the wall opposite the
+window.  There was a washstand behind the screen in the
+corner where he manufactured his moulds.  In the round bay
+window were his operating chair, his dental engine, and the
+movable rack on which he laid out his instruments.  Three
+chairs, a bargain at the second-hand store, ranged
+themselves against the wall with military precision
+underneath a steel engraving of the court of Lorenzo de'
+Medici, which he had bought because there were a great many
+figures in it for the money.  Over the bed-lounge hung a
+rifle manufacturer's advertisement calendar which he never
+used.  The other ornaments were a small marble-topped centre
+table covered with back numbers of "The American System of
+Dentistry," a stone pug dog sitting before the little stove,
+and a thermometer.  A stand of shelves occupied one corner,
+filled with the seven volumes of "Allen's Practical
+Dentist."  On the top shelf McTeague kept his concertina and
+a bag of bird seed for the canary.  The whole place exhaled
+a mingled odor of bedding, creosote, and ether.
+
+But for one thing, McTeague would have been perfectly
+contented. Just outside his window was his signboard--a
+modest affair--that read: "Doctor McTeague.  Dental Parlors. 
+Gas Given"; but that was all.  It was his ambition, his
+dream, to have projecting from that corner window a huge
+gilded tooth, a molar with enormous prongs, something
+gorgeous and attractive.  He would have it some day, on that
+he was resolved; but as yet such a thing was far beyond his
+means.
+
+When he had finished the last of his beer, McTeague slowly
+wiped his lips and huge yellow mustache with the side of his
+hand. Bull-like, he heaved himself laboriously up, and,
+going to the window, stood looking down into the street.
+
+The street never failed to interest him.  It was one of
+those cross streets peculiar to Western cities, situated in
+the heart of the residence quarter, but occupied by small
+tradespeople who lived in the rooms above their shops. 
+There were corner drug stores with huge jars of red, yellow,
+and green liquids in their windows, very brave and gay;
+stationers' stores, where illustrated weeklies were tacked
+upon bulletin boards; barber shops with cigar stands in
+their vestibules; sad-looking plumbers' offices; cheap
+restaurants, in whose windows one saw piles of unopened
+oysters weighted down by cubes of ice, and china pigs and
+cows knee deep in layers of white beans.  At one end of the
+street McTeague could see the huge power-house of the cable
+line.  Immediately opposite him was a great market; while
+farther on, over the chimney stacks of the intervening
+houses, the glass roof of some huge public baths glittered
+like crystal in the afternoon sun.  Underneath him the
+branch post-office was opening its doors, as was its custom
+between two and three o'clock on Sunday afternoons.  An
+acrid odor of ink rose upward to him.  Occasionally a cable
+car passed, trundling heavily, with a strident whirring of
+jostled glass windows.
+
+On week days the street was very lively.  It woke to its
+work about seven o'clock, at the time when the newsboys made
+their appearance together with the day laborers.  The
+laborers went trudging past in a straggling file--plumbers'
+apprentices, their pockets stuffed with sections of lead
+pipe, tweezers, and pliers; carpenters, carrying nothing but
+their little pasteboard lunch baskets painted to imitate
+leather; gangs of street workers, their overalls soiled with
+yellow clay, their picks and long-handled shovels over their
+shoulders; plasterers, spotted with lime from head to foot. 
+This little army of workers, tramping steadily in one
+direction, met and mingled with other toilers of a different
+description--conductors and "swing men" of the cable company
+going on duty; heavy-eyed night clerks from the drug stores
+on their way home to sleep; roundsmen returning to the
+precinct police station to make their night report, and
+Chinese market gardeners teetering past under their heavy
+baskets.  The cable cars began to fill up; all along the
+street could be seen the shopkeepers taking down their
+shutters.
+
+Between seven and eight the street breakfasted.  Now and
+then a waiter from one of the cheap restaurants crossed from
+one sidewalk to the other, balancing on one palm a tray
+covered with a napkin.  Everywhere was the smell of coffee
+and of frying steaks.  A little later, following in the path
+of the day laborers, came the clerks and shop girls, dressed
+with a certain cheap smartness, always in a hurry, glancing
+apprehensively at the power-house clock.  Their employers
+followed an hour or so later--on the cable cars for the most
+part whiskered gentlemen with huge stomachs, reading the
+morning papers with great gravity; bank cashiers and
+insurance clerks with flowers in their buttonholes.
+
+At the same time the school children invaded the street,
+filling the air with a clamor of shrill voices, stopping at
+the stationers' shops, or idling a moment in the doorways of
+the candy stores.  For over half an hour they held
+possession of the sidewalks, then suddenly disappeared,
+leaving behind one or two stragglers who hurried along with
+great strides of their little thin legs, very anxious and
+preoccupied.
+
+Towards eleven o'clock the ladies from the great avenue a
+block above Polk Street made their appearance, promenading
+the sidewalks leisurely, deliberately.  They were at their
+morning's marketing.  They were handsome women, beautifully
+dressed.  They knew by name their butchers and grocers and
+vegetable men.  From his window McTeague saw them in front
+of the stalls, gloved and veiled and daintily shod, the
+subservient provision men at their elbows, scribbling
+hastily in the order books.  They all seemed to know one
+another, these grand ladies from the fashionable avenue. 
+Meetings took place here and there; a conversation was
+begun; others arrived; groups were formed; little impromptu
+receptions were held before the chopping blocks of butchers'
+stalls, or on the sidewalk, around boxes of berries and
+fruit.
+
+From noon to evening the population of the street was of
+a mixed character.  The street was busiest at that time;
+a vast and prolonged murmur arose--the mingled shuffling of
+feet, the rattle of wheels, the heavy trundling of cable
+cars.  At four o'clock the school children once more swarmed
+the sidewalks, again disappearing with surprising
+suddenness.  At six the great homeward march commenced; the
+cars were crowded, the laborers thronged the sidewalks, the
+newsboys chanted the evening papers. Then all at once the
+street fell quiet; hardly a soul was in sight; the sidewalks
+were deserted.  It was supper hour. Evening began; and one
+by one a multitude of lights, from the demoniac glare of the
+druggists' windows to the dazzling blue whiteness of the
+electric globes, grew thick from street corner to street
+corner.  Once more the street was crowded.  Now there was no
+thought but for amusement.  The cable cars were loaded with
+theatre-goers--men in high hats and young girls in furred
+opera cloaks.  On the sidewalks were groups and couples--the
+plumbers' apprentices, the girls of the ribbon counters, the
+little families that lived on the second stories over their
+shops, the dressmakers, the small doctors, the harness-
+makers--all the various inhabitants of the street were
+abroad, strolling idly from shop window to shop window,
+taking the air after the day's work.  Groups of girls
+collected on the corners, talking and laughing very loud,
+making remarks upon the young men that passed them.  The
+tamale men appeared.  A band of Salvationists began to sing
+before a saloon.
+
+Then, little by little, Polk Street dropped back to
+solitude. Eleven o'clock struck from the power-house clock. 
+Lights were extinguished.  At one o'clock the cable stopped,
+leaving an abrupt silence in the air.  All at once it seemed
+very still. The ugly noises were the occasional footfalls of
+a policeman and the persistent calling of ducks and geese in
+the closed market. The street was asleep.
+
+Day after day, McTeague saw the same panorama unroll itself.
+The bay window of his "Dental Parlors" was for him a point
+of vantage from which he watched the world go past.
+
+On Sundays, however, all was changed.  As he stood in the
+bay window, after finishing his beer, wiping his lips, and
+looking out into the street, McTeague was conscious of
+the difference. Nearly all the stores were closed.  No
+wagons passed.  A few people hurried up and down the
+sidewalks, dressed in cheap Sunday finery.  A cable car went
+by; on the outside seats were a party of returning
+picnickers.  The mother, the father, a young man, and a
+young girl, and three children.  The two older people held
+empty lunch baskets in their laps, while the bands of the
+children's hats were stuck full of oak leaves.  The girl
+carried a huge bunch of wilting poppies and wild flowers.
+
+As the car approached McTeague's window the young man got up
+and swung himself off the platform, waving goodby to the
+party. Suddenly McTeague recognized him.
+
+"There's Marcus Schouler," he muttered behind his mustache.
+
+Marcus Schouler was the dentist's one intimate friend. The
+acquaintance had begun at the car conductors' coffee-joint,
+where the two occupied the same table and met at every meal.
+Then they made the discovery that they both lived in the
+same flat, Marcus occupying a room on the floor above
+McTeague.  On different occasions McTeague had treated
+Marcus for an ulcerated tooth and had refused to accept
+payment.  Soon it came to be an understood thing between
+them.  They were "pals."
+
+McTeague, listening, heard Marcus go up-stairs to his room
+above.  In a few minutes his door opened again.  McTeague
+knew that he had come out into the hall and was leaning over
+the banisters.
+
+"Oh, Mac!" he called.  McTeague came to his door.
+
+"Hullo! 'sthat you, Mark?"
+
+"Sure," answered Marcus.  "Come on up."
+
+"You come on down."
+
+"No, come on up."
+
+"Oh, you come on down."
+
+"Oh, you lazy duck!" retorted Marcus, coming down the
+stairs.
+
+"Been out to the Cliff House on a picnic," he explained as
+he sat down on the bed-lounge, "with my uncle and his
+people--the Sieppes, you know.  By damn! it was hot," he
+suddenly vociferated.  "Just look at that!  Just look at
+that!" he cried, dragging at his limp collar.  "That's the
+third one since morning; it is--it is, for a fact--and you
+got your stove going."  He began to tell about the picnic,
+talking very loud and fast, gesturing furiously, very
+excited over trivial details.  Marcus could not talk without
+getting excited.
+
+"You ought t'have seen, y'ought t'have seen.  I tell you, it
+was outa sight.  It was; it was, for a fact."
+
+"Yes, yes," answered McTeague, bewildered, trying to follow.
+"Yes, that's so."
+
+In recounting a certain dispute with an awkward bicyclist,
+in which it appeared he had become involved, Marcus quivered
+with rage.  "'Say that again,' says I to um.  'Just say that
+once more, and'"--here a rolling explosion of oaths--
+"'you'll go back to the city in the Morgue wagon.  Ain't I
+got a right to cross a street even, I'd like to know,
+without being run down--what?'  I say it's outrageous.  I'd
+a knifed him in another minute.  It was an outrage.  I say
+it was an OUTRAGE."
+
+"Sure it was," McTeague hastened to reply.  "Sure, sure."
+
+"Oh, and we had an accident," shouted the other, suddenly
+off on another tack.  "It was awful.  Trina was in the swing
+there--that's my cousin Trina, you know who I mean--and she
+fell out.  By damn!  I thought she'd killed herself; struck
+her face on a rock and knocked out a front tooth.  It's a
+wonder she didn't kill herself.  It IS a wonder; it is,
+for a fact. Ain't it, now? Huh?  Ain't it? Y'ought t'have
+seen."
+
+McTeague had a vague idea that Marcus Schouler was stuck on
+his cousin Trina.  They "kept company" a good deal; Marcus
+took dinner with the Sieppes every Saturday evening at their
+home at B Street station, across the bay, and Sunday
+afternoons he and the family usually made little excursions
+into the suburbs. McTeague began to wonder dimly how it was
+that on this occasion Marcus had not gone home with his
+cousin.  As sometimes happens, Marcus furnished the
+explanation upon the instant.
+
+"I promised a duck up here on the avenue I'd call for his
+dog at four this afternoon."
+
+Marcus was Old Grannis's assistant in a little dog
+hospital that the latter had opened in a sort of alley just
+off Polk Street, some four blocks above Old Grannis lived in
+one of the back rooms of McTeague's flat.  He was an
+Englishman and an expert dog surgeon, but Marcus Schouler
+was a bungler in the profession.  His father had been a
+veterinary surgeon who had kept a livery stable near by, on
+California Street, and Marcus's knowledge of the diseases of
+domestic animals had been picked up in a haphazard way, much
+after the manner of McTeague's education.  Somehow he
+managed to impress Old Grannis, a gentle, simple-minded old
+man, with a sense of his fitness, bewildering him with a
+torrent of empty phrases that he delivered with fierce
+gestures and with a manner of the greatest conviction.
+
+"You'd better come along with me, Mac," observed Marcus. 
+"We'll get the duck's dog, and then we'll take a little
+walk, huh?  You got nothun to do.  Come along."
+
+McTeague went out with him, and the two friends proceeded up
+to the avenue to the house where the dog was to be found. 
+It was a huge mansion-like place, set in an enormous garden
+that occupied a whole third of the block; and while Marcus
+tramped up the front steps and rang the doorbell boldly, to
+show his independence, McTeague remained below on the
+sidewalk, gazing stupidly at the curtained windows, the
+marble steps, and the bronze griffins, troubled and a little
+confused by all this massive luxury.
+
+After they had taken the dog to the hospital and had left
+him to whimper behind the wire netting, they returned to
+Polk Street and had a glass of beer in the back room of Joe
+Frenna's corner grocery.
+
+Ever since they had left the huge mansion on the avenue,
+Marcus had been attacking the capitalists, a class which he
+pretended to execrate.  It was a pose which he often
+assumed, certain of impressing the dentist.  Marcus had
+picked up a few half-truths of political economy--it was
+impossible to say where--and as soon as the two had settled
+themselves to their beer in Frenna's back room he took up
+the theme of the labor question.  He discussed it at the
+top of his voice, vociferating, shaking his fists, exciting
+himself with his own noise.  He was continually making use
+of the stock phrases of the professional politician--phrases
+he had caught at some of the ward "rallies" and
+"ratification meetings."  These rolled off his tongue with
+incredible emphasis, appearing at every turn of his
+conversation--"Outraged constituencies," "cause of labor,"
+"wage earners," "opinions biased by personal interests,"
+"eyes blinded by party prejudice."  McTeague listened to
+him, awestruck.
+
+"There's where the evil lies," Marcus would cry.  "The
+masses must learn self-control; it stands to reason. Look at
+the figures, look at the figures.  Decrease the number of
+wage earners and you increase wages, don't you? don't you?"
+
+Absolutely stupid, and understanding never a word, McTeague
+would answer:
+
+"Yes, yes, that's it--self-control--that's the word."
+
+"It's the capitalists that's ruining the cause of labor,"
+shouted Marcus, banging the table with his fist till the
+beer glasses danced; "white-livered drones, traitors, with
+their livers white as snow, eatun the bread of widows and
+orphuns; there's where the evil lies."
+
+Stupefied with his clamor, McTeague answered, wagging his
+head:
+
+"Yes, that's it; I think it's their livers."
+
+Suddenly Marcus fell calm again, forgetting his pose all in
+an instant.
+
+"Say, Mac, I told my cousin Trina to come round and see you
+about that tooth of her's.  She'll be in to-morrow, I
+guess."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+
+After his breakfast the following Monday morning, McTeague
+looked over the appointments he had written down in the
+book-slate that hung against the screen.  His writing was
+immense, very clumsy, and very round, with huge, full-
+bellied l's and h's.  He saw that he had made an appointment
+at one o'clock for Miss Baker, the retired dressmaker, a
+little old maid who had a tiny room a few doors down the
+hall.  It adjoined that of Old Grannis.
+
+Quite an affair had arisen from this circumstance.  Miss
+Baker and Old Grannis were both over sixty, and yet it was
+current talk amongst the lodgers of the flat that the two
+were in love with each other . Singularly enough, they were
+not even acquaintances; never a word had passed between
+them.  At intervals they met on the stairway; he on his way
+to his little dog hospital, she returning from a bit of
+marketing in the street.  At such times they passed each
+other with averted eyes, pretending a certain pre-
+occupation, suddenly seized with a great embarrassment, the
+timidity of a second childhood.  He went on about his
+business, disturbed and thoughtful.  She hurried up to her
+tiny room, her curious little false curls shaking with her
+agitation, the faintest suggestion of a flush coming and
+going in her withered cheeks.  The emotion of one of these
+chance meetings remained with them during all the rest of
+the day.
+
+Was it the first romance in the lives of each?  Did Old
+Grannis ever remember a certain face amongst those that he
+had known when he was young Grannis--the face of some pale-
+haired girl, such as one sees in the old cathedral towns of
+England?  Did Miss Baker still treasure up in a seldom
+opened drawer or box some faded daguerreotype, some strange
+old-fashioned likeness, with its curling hair and high
+stock?  It was impossible to say.
+
+Maria Macapa, the Mexican woman who took care of the
+lodgers' rooms, had been the first to call the flat's
+attention to the affair, spreading the news of it from room
+to room, from floor to floor.  Of late she had made a great
+discovery; all the women folk of the flat were yet vibrant
+with it.  Old Grannis came home from his work at four
+o'clock, and between that time and six Miss Baker would sit
+in her room, her hands idle in her lap, doing nothing,
+listening, waiting.  Old Grannis did the same, drawing his
+arm-chair near to the wall, knowing that Miss Baker was upon
+the other side, conscious, perhaps, that she was thinking of
+him; and there the two would sit through the hours of the
+afternoon, listening and waiting, they did not know exactly
+for what, but near to each other, separated only by the thin
+partition of their rooms.  They had come to know each
+other's habits.  Old Grannis knew that at quarter of five
+precisely Miss Baker made a cup of tea over the oil stove on
+the stand between the bureau and the window.  Miss Baker
+felt instinctively the exact moment when Old Grannis took
+down his little binding apparatus from the second shelf of
+his clothes closet and began his favorite occupation of
+binding pamphlets--pamphlets that he never read, for all
+that.
+
+In his "Parlors" McTeague began his week's work.  He glanced 
+in the glass saucer in which he kept his sponge-gold, and
+noticing that he had used up all his pellets, set about
+making some more. In examining Miss Baker's teeth at the
+preliminary sitting he had found a cavity in one of the
+incisors.  Miss Baker had decided to have it filled with
+gold.  McTeague remembered now that it was what is called a
+"proximate case," where there is not sufficient room to fill
+with large pieces of gold.  He told himself that he should
+have to use "mats" in the filling.  He made some dozen of
+these "mats" from his tape of non-cohesive gold, cutting it
+transversely into small pieces that could be inserted
+edgewise between the teeth and consolidated by packing.
+After he had made his "mats" he continued with the other
+kind of gold fillings, such as he would have occasion to use
+during the week; "blocks" to be used in large proximal
+cavities, made by folding the tape on itself a number of
+times and then shaping it with the soldering pliers;
+"cylinders" for commencing fillings, which he formed by
+rolling the tape around a needle called a "broach," cutting
+it afterwards into different lengths. He worked slowly,
+mechanically, turning the foil between his fingers with the
+manual dexterity that one sometimes sees in stupid persons. 
+His head was quite empty of all thought, and he did not
+whistle over his work as another man might have done. The
+canary made up for his silence, trilling and chittering
+continually, splashing about in its morning bath, keeping up
+an incessant noise and movement that would have been
+maddening to any one but McTeague, who seemed to have no
+nerves at all.
+
+After he had finished his fillings, he made a hook broach
+from a bit of piano wire to replace an old one that he had
+lost.  It was time for his dinner then, and when he returned
+from the car conductors' coffee-joint, he found Miss Baker
+waiting for him.
+
+The ancient little dressmaker was at all times willing to
+talk of Old Grannis to anybody that would listen, quite
+unconscious of the gossip of the flat.  McTeague found her
+all a-flutter with excitement.  Something extraordinary had
+happened.  She had found out that the wall-paper in Old
+Grannis's room was the same as that in hers.
+
+"It has led me to thinking, Doctor McTeague," she exclaimed,
+shaking her little false curls at him.  "You know my room is
+so small, anyhow, and the wall-paper being the same--the
+pattern from my room continues right into his--I declare, I
+believe at one time that was all one room.  Think of it, do
+you suppose it was?  It almost amounts to our occupying the
+same room.  I don't know--why, really--do you think I should
+speak to the landlady about it?  He bound pamphlets last
+night until half-past nine. They say that he's the younger
+son of a baronet; that there are reasons for his not coming
+to the title; his stepfather wronged him cruelly."
+
+No one had ever said such a thing.  It was preposterous to
+imagine any mystery connected with Old Grannis.  Miss Baker
+had chosen to invent the little fiction, had created the
+title and the unjust stepfather from some dim memories of
+the novels of her girlhood.
+
+She took her place in the operating chair.  McTeague
+began the filling.  There was a long silence.  It was
+impossible for McTeague to work and talk at the same time.
+
+He was just burnishing the last "mat" in Miss Baker's tooth,
+when the door of the "Parlors" opened, jangling the bell
+which he had hung over it, and which was absolutely
+unnecessary. McTeague turned, one foot on the pedal of his
+dental engine, the corundum disk whirling between his
+fingers.
+
+It was Marcus Schouler who came in, ushering a young girl of
+about twenty.
+
+"Hello, Mac," exclaimed Marcus; "busy?  Brought my cousin
+round about that broken tooth."
+
+McTeague nodded his head gravely.
+
+"In a minute," he answered.
+
+Marcus and his cousin Trina sat down in the rigid chairs
+underneath the steel engraving of the Court of Lorenzo de'
+Medici.  They began talking in low tones.  The girl looked
+about the room, noticing the stone pug dog, the rifle
+manufacturer's calendar, the canary in its little gilt
+prison, and the tumbled blankets on the unmade bed-lounge
+against the wall.  Marcus began telling her about McTeague. 
+"We're pals," he explained, just above a whisper.  "Ah,
+Mac's all right, you bet.  Say, Trina, he's the strongest
+duck you ever saw.  What do you suppose?  He can pull out
+your teeth with his fingers; yes, he can.  What do you think
+of that?  With his fingers, mind you; he can, for a fact.
+Get on to the size of him, anyhow.  Ah, Mac's all right!"
+
+Maria Macapa had come into the room while he had been
+speaking. She was making up McTeague's bed.  Suddenly Marcus
+exclaimed under his breath: "Now we'll have some fun.  It's
+the girl that takes care of the rooms.  She's a greaser, and
+she's queer in the head.  She ain't regularly crazy, but
+I don't know, she's queer.  Y'ought to hear her go on about
+a gold dinner service she says her folks used to own.  Ask
+her what her name is and see what she'll say."  Trina shrank
+back, a little frightened.
+
+"No, you ask," she whispered.
+
+"Ah, go on; what you 'fraid of?" urged Marcus.  Trina
+shook her head energetically, shutting her lips together.
+
+"Well, listen here," answered Marcus, nudging her; then
+raising his voice, he said:
+
+"How do, Maria?"  Maria nodded to him over her shoulder as
+she bent over the lounge.
+
+"Workun hard nowadays, Maria?"
+
+"Pretty hard."
+
+"Didunt always have to work for your living, though, did
+you, when you ate offa gold dishes?" Maria didn't answer,
+except by putting her chin in the air and shutting her eyes,
+as though to say she knew a long story about that if she had
+a mind to talk. All Marcus's efforts to draw her out on the
+subject were unavailing.  She only responded by movements of
+her head.
+
+"Can't always start her going," Marcus told his cousin.
+
+"What does she do, though, when you ask her about her name?"
+
+"Oh, sure," said Marcus, who had forgotten.  "Say, Maria,
+what's your name?"
+
+"Huh?" asked Maria, straightening up, her hands on he hips.
+
+"Tell us your name," repeated Marcus.
+
+"Name is Maria--Miranda--Macapa."  Then, after a pause, she
+added, as though she had but that moment thought of it, "Had
+a flying squirrel an' let him go."
+
+Invariably Maria Macapa made this answer.  It was not always
+she would talk about the famous service of gold plate, but a
+question as to her name never failed to elicit the same
+strange answer, delivered in a rapid undertone: "Name is
+Maria--Miranda--Macapa."  Then, as if struck with an after
+thought, "Had a flying squirrel an' let him go."
+
+Why Maria should associate the release of the mythical
+squirrel with her name could not be said.  About Maria the
+flat knew absolutely nothing further than that she was
+Spanish-American. Miss Baker was the oldest lodger in the
+flat, and Maria was a fixture there as maid of all work
+when she had come.  There was a legend to the effect that
+Maria's people had been at one time immensely wealthy in
+Central America.
+
+Maria turned again to her work.  Trina and Marcus watched
+her curiously.  There was a silence.  The corundum burr in
+McTeague's engine hummed in a prolonged monotone.  The
+canary bird chittered occasionally.  The room was warm, and
+the breathing of the five people in the narrow space made
+the air close and thick.  At long intervals an acrid odor of
+ink floated up from the branch post-office immediately
+below.
+
+Maria Macapa finished her work and started to leave.  As she
+passed near Marcus and his cousin she stopped, and drew a
+bunch of blue tickets furtively from her pocket.  "Buy a
+ticket in the lottery?" she inquired, looking at the girl. 
+"Just a dollar."
+
+"Go along with you, Maria," said Marcus, who had but thirty
+cents in his pocket.  "Go along; it's against the law."
+
+"Buy a ticket," urged Maria, thrusting the bundle toward
+Trina. "Try your luck.  The butcher on the next block won
+twenty dollars the last drawing."
+
+Very uneasy, Trina bought a ticket for the sake of being rid
+of her.  Maria disappeared.
+
+"Ain't she a queer bird?" muttered Marcus.  He was much
+embarrassed and disturbed because he had not bought the
+ticket for Trina.
+
+But there was a sudden movement.  McTeague had just finished
+with Miss Baker.
+
+"You should notice," the dressmaker said to the dentist, in
+a low voice, "he always leaves the door a little ajar in the
+afternoon."  When she had gone out, Marcus Schouler brought
+Trina forward.
+
+"Say, Mac, this is my cousin, Trina Sieppe."  The two shook
+hands dumbly, McTeague slowly nodding his huge head with its
+great shock of yellow hair.  Trina was very small and
+prettily made.  Her face was round and rather pale; her eyes
+long and narrow and blue, like the half-open eyes of a
+little baby; her lips and the lobes of her tiny ears
+were pale, a little suggestive of anaemia; while across the
+bridge of her nose ran an adorable little line of freckles. 
+But it was to her hair that one's attention was most
+attracted.  Heaps and heaps of blue-black coils and braids,
+a royal crown of swarthy bands, a veritable sable tiara,
+heavy, abundant, odorous.  All the vitality that should have
+given color to her face seemed to have been absorbed by this
+marvellous hair.  It was the coiffure of a queen that
+shadowed the pale temples of this little bourgeoise. So
+heavy was it that it tipped her head backward, and the
+position thrust her chin out a little.  It was a charming
+poise, innocent, confiding, almost infantile.
+
+She was dressed all in black, very modest and plain. The
+effect of her pale face in all this contrasting black was
+almost monastic.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Marcus suddenly, "I got to go.  Must get
+back to work.  Don't hurt her too much, Mac.  S'long,
+Trina."
+
+McTeague and Trina were left alone.  He was embarrassed,
+troubled.  These young girls disturbed and perplexed him. 
+He did not like them, obstinately cherishing that intuitive
+suspicion of all things feminine--the perverse dislike of an
+overgrown boy.  On the other hand, she was perfectly at her
+ease; doubtless the woman in her was not yet awakened; she
+was yet, as one might say, without sex.  She was almost like
+a boy, frank, candid, unreserved.
+
+She took her place in the operating chair and told him what
+was the matter, looking squarely into his face. She had
+fallen out of a swing the afternoon of the preceding day;
+one of her teeth had been knocked loose and the other
+altogether broken out.
+
+McTeague listened to her with apparent stolidity, nodding
+his head from time to time as she spoke.  The keenness of
+his dislike of her as a woman began to be blunted.  He
+thought she was rather pretty, that he even liked her
+because she was so small, so prettily made, so good natured
+and straightforward.
+
+"Let's have a look at your teeth," he said, picking up his
+mirror.  "You better take your hat off."  She leaned back in
+her chair and opened her mouth, showing the rows of
+little round teeth, as white and even as the kernels on an
+ear of green corn, except where an ugly gap came at the
+side.
+
+McTeague put the mirror into her mouth, touching one and
+another of her teeth with the handle of an excavator.  By
+and by he straightened up, wiping the moisture from the
+mirror on his coat-sleeve.
+
+"Well, Doctor," said the girl, anxiously, "it's a dreadful
+disfigurement, isn't it?" adding, "What can you do about
+it?"
+
+"Well," answered McTeague, slowly, looking vaguely about on
+the floor of the room, "the roots of the broken tooth are
+still in the gum; they'll have to come out, and I guess I'll
+have to pull that other bicuspid.  Let me look again.  Yes,"
+he went on in a moment, peering into her mouth with the
+mirror, "I guess that'll have to come out, too."  The tooth
+was loose, discolored, and evidently dead.  "It's a curious
+case," McTeague went on.  "I don't know as I ever had a
+tooth like that before.  It's what's called necrosis.  It
+don't often happen.  It'll have to come out sure."
+
+Then a discussion was opened on the subject, Trina sitting
+up in the chair, holding her hat in her lap; McTeague
+leaning against the window frame his hands in his pockets,
+his eyes wandering about on the floor. Trina did not want
+the other tooth removed; one hole like that was bad enough;
+but two--ah, no, it was not to be thought of.
+
+But McTeague reasoned with her, tried in vain to make her
+understand that there was no vascular connection between the
+root and the gum.  Trina was blindly persistent, with the
+persistency of a girl who has made up her mind.
+
+McTeague began to like her better and better, and after a
+while commenced himself to feel that it would be a pity to
+disfigure such a pretty mouth.  He became interested;
+perhaps he could do something, something in the way of a
+crown or bridge.  "Let's look at that again," he said,
+picking up his mirror.  He began to study the situation very
+carefully, really desiring to remedy the blemish.
+
+It was the first bicuspid that was missing, and though part
+of the root of the second (the loose one) would remain
+after its extraction, he was sure it would not be strong
+enough to sustain a crown.  All at once he grew obstinate,
+resolving, with all the strength of a crude and primitive
+man, to conquer the difficulty in spite of everything.  He
+turned over in his mind the technicalities of the case.  No,
+evidently the root was not strong enough to sustain a crown;
+besides that, it was placed a little irregularly in the
+arch.  But, fortunately, there were cavities in the two
+teeth on either side of the gap--one in the first molar and
+one in the palatine surface of the cuspid; might he not
+drill a socket in the remaining root and sockets in the
+molar and cuspid, and, partly by bridging, partly by
+crowning, fill in the gap?  He made up his mind to do it.
+
+Why he should pledge himself to this hazardous case McTeague
+was puzzled to know.  With most of his clients he would have
+contented himself with the extraction of the loose tooth and
+the roots of the broken one.  Why should he risk his
+reputation in this case?  He could not say why.
+
+It was the most difficult operation he had ever performed. 
+He bungled it considerably, but in the end he succeeded
+passably well.  He extracted the loose tooth with his
+bayonet forceps and prepared the roots of the broken one as
+if for filling, fitting into them a flattened piece of
+platinum wire to serve as a dowel. But this was only the
+beginning; altogether it was a fortnight's work.  Trina came
+nearly every other day, and passed two, and even three,
+hours in the chair.
+
+By degrees McTeague's first awkwardness and suspicion
+vanished entirely.  The two became good friends.  McTeague
+even arrived at that point where he could work and talk to
+her at the same time--a thing that had never before been
+possible for him.
+
+Never until then had McTeague become so well acquainted with
+a girl of Trina's age.  The younger women of Polk Street--
+the shop girls, the young women of the soda fountains, the
+waitresses in the cheap restaurants--preferred another
+dentist, a young fellow just graduated from the college, a
+poser, a rider of bicycles, a man about town, who wore
+astonishing waistcoats and bet money on greyhound
+coursing.  Trina was McTeague's first experience. With her
+the feminine element suddenly entered his little world. It
+was not only her that he saw and felt, it was the woman, the
+whole sex, an entire new humanity, strange and alluring,
+that he seemed to have discovered.  How had he ignored it so
+long?  It was dazzling, delicious, charming beyond all
+words.  His narrow point of view was at once enlarged and
+confused, and all at once he saw that there was something
+else in life besides concertinas and steam beer.  Everything
+had to be made over again.  His whole rude idea of life had
+to be changed.  The male virile desire in him tardily
+awakened, aroused itself, strong and brutal.  It was
+resistless, untrained, a thing not to be held in leash an
+instant.
+
+Little by little, by gradual, almost imperceptible degrees,
+the thought of Trina Sieppe occupied his mind from day to
+day, from hour to hour.  He found himself thinking of her
+constantly; at every instant he saw her round, pale face;
+her narrow, milk-blue eyes; her little out-thrust chin; her
+heavy, huge tiara of black hair.  At night he lay awake for
+hours under the thick blankets of the bed-lounge, staring
+upward into the darkness, tormented with the idea of her,
+exasperated at the delicate, subtle mesh in which he found
+himself entangled.  During the forenoons, while he went
+about his work, he thought of her.  As he made his plaster-
+of-paris moulds at the washstand in the corner behind the
+screen he turned over in his mind all that had happened, all
+that had been said at the previous sitting.  Her little
+tooth that he had extracted he kept wrapped in a bit of
+newspaper in his vest pocket.  Often he took it out and held
+it in the palm of his immense, horny hand, seized with some
+strange elephantine sentiment, wagging his head at it,
+heaving tremendous sighs. What a folly!
+
+At two o'clock on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays Trina
+arrived and took her place in the operating chair.  While at
+his work McTeague was every minute obliged to bend closely
+over her; his hands touched her face, her cheeks, her
+adorable little chin; her lips pressed against his fingers. 
+She breathed warmly on his forehead and on his eyelids,
+while the odor of her hair, a charming feminine perfume,
+sweet, heavy, enervating, came to his nostrils, so
+penetrating, so delicious, that his flesh pricked and
+tingled with it; a veritable sensation of faintness passed
+over this huge, callous fellow, with his enormous bones and
+corded muscles.  He drew a short breath through his nose;
+his jaws suddenly gripped together vise-like.
+
+But this was only at times--a strange, vexing spasm, that
+subsided almost immediately.  For the most part, McTeague
+enjoyed the pleasure of these sittings with Trina with a
+certain strong calmness, blindly happy that she was there. 
+This poor crude dentist of Polk Street, stupid, ignorant,
+vulgar, with his sham education and plebeian tastes, whose
+only relaxations were to eat, to drink steam beer, and to
+play upon his concertina, was living through his first
+romance, his first idyl.  It was delightful.  The long hours
+he passed alone with Trina in the "Dental Parlors," silent,
+only for the scraping of the instruments and the pouring of
+bud-burrs in the engine, in the foul atmosphere, overheated
+by the little stove and heavy with the smell of ether,
+creosote, and stale bedding, had all the charm of secret
+appointments and stolen meetings under the moon.
+
+By degrees the operation progressed.  One day, just after
+McTeague had put in the temporary gutta-percha fillings and
+nothing more could be done at that sitting, Trina asked him
+to examine the rest of her teeth.  They were perfect, with
+one exception--a spot of white caries on the lateral surface
+of an incisor.  McTeague filled it with gold, enlarging the
+cavity with hard-bits and hoe-excavators, and burring in
+afterward with half-cone burrs.  The cavity was deep, and
+Trina began to wince and moan.  To hurt Trina was a positive
+anguish for McTeague, yet an anguish which he was obliged to
+endure at every hour of the sitting.  It was harrowing--he
+sweated under it--to be forced to torture her, of all women
+in the world; could anything be worse than that?
+
+"Hurt?" he inquired, anxiously.
+
+She answered by frowning, with a sharp intake of breath,
+putting her fingers over her closed lips and nodding her
+head.  McTeague sprayed the tooth with glycerite of
+tannin, but without effect. Rather than hurt her he found
+himself forced to the use of anaesthesia, which he hated. 
+He had a notion that the nitrous oxide gas was dangerous, so
+on this occasion, as on all others, used ether.
+
+He put the sponge a half dozen times to Trina's face, more
+nervous than he had ever been before, watching the symptoms
+closely.  Her breathing became short and irregular; there
+was a slight twitching of the muscles.  When her thumbs
+turned inward toward the palms, he took the sponge away. 
+She passed off very quickly, and, with a long sigh, sank
+back into the chair.
+
+McTeague straightened up, putting the sponge upon the rack
+behind him, his eyes fixed upon Trina's face.  For some time
+he stood watching her as she lay there, unconscious and
+helpless, and very pretty.  He was alone with her, and she
+was absolutely without defense.
+
+Suddenly the animal in the man stirred and woke; the evil
+instincts that in him were so close to the surface leaped to
+life, shouting and clamoring.
+
+It was a crisis--a crisis that had arisen all in an instant;
+a crisis for which he was totally unprepared.  Blindly, and
+without knowing why, McTeague fought against it, moved by an
+unreasoned instinct of resistance.  Within him, a certain
+second self, another better McTeague rose with the brute;
+both were strong, with the huge crude strength of the man
+himself.  The two were at grapples.  There in that cheap and
+shabby "Dental Parlor" a dreaded struggle began.  It was the
+old battle, old as the world, wide as the world--the sudden
+panther leap of the animal, lips drawn, fangs aflash,
+hideous, monstrous, not to be resisted, and the simultaneous
+arousing of the other man, the better self that cries,
+"Down, down," without knowing why; that grips the monster;
+that fights to strangle it, to thrust it down and back.
+
+Dizzied and bewildered with the shock, the like of which he
+had never known before, McTeague turned from Trina, gazing
+bewilderedly about the room.  The struggle was bitter; his
+teeth ground themselves together with a little rasping
+sound; the blood sang in his ears; his face flushed scarlet;
+his hands twisted themselves together like the knotting of
+cables.  The fury in him was as the fury of a young bull in
+the heat of high summer.  But for all that he shook his huge
+head from time to time, muttering:
+
+"No, by God!  No, by God!"
+
+Dimly he seemed to realize that should he yield now he would
+never be able to care for Trina again.  She would never be
+the same to him, never so radiant, so sweet, so adorable;
+her charm for him would vanish in an instant.  Across her
+forehead, her little pale forehead, under the shadow of her
+royal hair, he would surely see the smudge of a foul ordure,
+the footprint of the monster.  It would be a sacrilege, an
+abomination.  He recoiled from it, banding all his strength
+to the issue.
+
+"No, by God!  No, by God!"
+
+He turned to his work, as if seeking a refuge in it.  But as
+he drew near to her again, the charm of her innocence and
+helplessness came over him afresh.  It was a final protest
+against his resolution.  Suddenly he leaned over and kissed
+her, grossly, full on the mouth.  The thing was done before
+he knew it.  Terrified at his weakness at the very moment he
+believed himself strong, he threw himself once more into his
+work with desperate energy.  By the time he was fastening
+the sheet of rubber upon the tooth, he had himself once more
+in hand.  He was disturbed, still trembling, still vibrating
+with the throes of the crisis, but he was the master; the
+animal was downed, was cowed for this time, at least.
+
+But for all that, the brute was there.  Long dormant, it was
+now at last alive, awake.  From now on he would feel its
+presence continually; would feel it tugging at its chain,
+watching its opportunity.  Ah, the pity of it!  Why could he
+not always love her purely, cleanly?  What was this
+perverse, vicious thing that lived within him, knitted to
+his flesh?
+
+Below the fine fabric of all that was good in him ran the
+foul stream of hereditary evil, like a sewer.  The vices and
+sins of his father and of his father's father, to the third
+and fourth and five hundredth generation, tainted him.
+The evil of an entire race flowed in his veins.  Why should
+it be?  He did not desire it.  Was he to blame?
+
+But McTeague could not understand this thing.  It had faced
+him, as sooner or later it faces every child of man; but its
+significance was not for him.  To reason with it was beyond
+him. He could only oppose to it an instinctive stubborn
+resistance, blind, inert.
+
+McTeague went on with his work.  As he was rapping in the
+little blocks and cylinders with the mallet, Trina slowly
+came back to herself with a long sigh.  She still felt a
+little confused, and lay quiet in the chair.  There was a
+long silence, broken only by the uneven tapping of the
+hardwood mallet.  By and by she said, "I never felt a
+thing," and then she smiled at him very prettily beneath the
+rubber dam.  McTeague turned to her suddenly, his mallet in
+one hand, his pliers holding a pellet of sponge-gold in the
+other.  All at once he said, with the unreasoned simplicity
+and directness of a child: "Listen here, Miss Trina, I like
+you better than any one else; what's the matter with us
+getting married?"
+
+Trina sat up in the chair quickly, and then drew back from
+him, frightened and bewildered.
+
+"Will you?  Will you?" said McTeague.  "Say, Miss Trina,
+will you?"
+
+"What is it?  What do you mean?" she cried, confusedly, her
+words muffled beneath the rubber.
+
+"Will you?" repeated McTeague.
+
+"No, no," she exclaimed, refusing without knowing why,
+suddenly seized with a fear of him, the intuitive feminine
+fear of the male.  McTeague could only repeat the same thing
+over and over again.  Trina, more and more frightened at his
+huge hands--the hands of the old-time car-boy--his immense
+square-cut head and his enormous brute strength, cried out:
+"No, no," behind the rubber dam, shaking her head violently,
+holding out her hands, and shrinking down before him in the
+operating chair.  McTeague came nearer to her, repeating the
+same question.  "No, no," she cried, terrified.  Then, as
+she exclaimed, "Oh, I am sick," was suddenly taken with a
+fit of vomiting.  It was the not unusual after effect of the
+ether, aided now by her excitement and nervousness. 
+McTeague was checked.  He poured some bromide of potassium
+into a graduated glass and held it to her lips.
+
+"Here, swallow this," he said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+
+Once every two months Maria Macapa set the entire flat in
+commotion.  She roamed the building from garret to cellar,
+searching each corner, ferreting through every old box and
+trunk and barrel, groping about on the top shelves of
+closets, peering into rag-bags, exasperating the lodgers
+with her persistence and importunity.  She was collecting
+junks, bits of iron, stone jugs, glass bottles, old sacks,
+and cast-off garments.  It was one of her perquisites.  She
+sold the junk to Zerkow, the rags-bottles-sacks man, who
+lived in a filthy den in the alley just back of the flat,
+and who sometimes paid her as much as three cents a pound. 
+The stone jugs, however, were worth a nickel.  The money
+that Zerkow paid her, Maria spent on shirt waists and dotted
+blue neckties, trying to dress like the girls who tended the
+soda-water fountain in the candy store on the corner. She
+was sick with envy of these young women.  They were in the
+world, they were elegant, they were debonair, they had their
+"young men."
+
+On this occasion she presented herself at the door of Old
+Grannis's room late in the afternoon.  His door stood a
+little open.  That of Miss Baker was ajar a few inches.  The
+two old people were "keeping company" after their fashion.
+
+"Got any junk, Mister Grannis?" inquired Maria, standing
+in the door, a very dirty, half-filled pillowcase over one
+arm.
+
+"No, nothing--nothing that I can think of, Maria," replied
+Old Grannis, terribly vexed at the interruption, yet not
+wishing to be unkind.  "Nothing I think of.  Yet, however--
+perhaps--if you wish to look."
+
+He sat in the middle of the room before a small pine table. 
+His little binding apparatus was before him.  In his fingers
+was a huge upholsterer's needle threaded with twine, a brad-
+awl lay at his elbow, on the floor beside him was a great
+pile of pamphlets, the pages uncut.  Old Grannis bought the
+"Nation" and the "Breeder and Sportsman."  In the latter he
+occasionally found articles on dogs which interested him. 
+The former he seldom read.  He could not afford to subscribe
+regularly to either of the publications, but purchased their
+back numbers by the score, almost solely for the pleasure he
+took in binding them.
+
+"What you alus sewing up them books for, Mister Grannis?"
+asked Maria, as she began rummaging about in Old Grannis's
+closet shelves.  "There's just hundreds of 'em in here on
+yer shelves; they ain't no good to you."
+
+"Well, well," answered Old Grannis, timidly, rubbing his
+chin, "I--I'm sure I can't quite say; a little habit, you
+know; a diversion, a--a--it occupies one, you know.  I don't
+smoke; it takes the place of a pipe, perhaps."
+
+"Here's this old yellow pitcher," said Maria, coming out of
+the closet with it in her hand.  "The handle's cracked; you
+don't want it; better give me it."
+
+Old Grannis did want the pitcher; true, he never used it
+now, but he had kept it a long time, and somehow he held to
+it as old people hold to trivial, worthless things that they
+have had for many years.
+
+"Oh, that pitcher--well, Maria, I--I don't know.  I'm
+afraid--you see, that pitcher----"
+
+"Ah, go 'long," interrupted Maria Macapa, "what's the good
+of it?"
+
+"If you insist, Maria, but I would much rather--" he rubbed
+his chin, perplexed and annoyed, hating to refuse, and
+wishing that Maria were gone.
+
+"Why, what's the good of it?" persisted Maria.  He could
+give no sufficient answer.  "That's all right," she
+asserted, carrying the pitcher out.
+
+"Ah--Maria--I say, you--you might leave the door--ah, don't
+quite shut it--it's a bit close in here at times."  Maria
+grinned, and swung the door wide.  Old Grannis was horribly
+embarrassed; positively, Maria was becoming unbearable.
+
+"Got any junk?" cried Maria at Miss Baker's door.  The
+little old lady was sitting close to the wall in her
+rocking-chair; her hands resting idly in her lap.
+
+"Now, Maria," she said plaintively, "you are always after
+junk; you know I never have anything laying 'round like
+that."
+
+It was true.  The retired dressmaker's tiny room was a
+marvel of neatness, from the little red table, with its
+three Gorham spoons laid in exact parallels, to the decorous
+geraniums and mignonettes growing in the starch box at the
+window, underneath the fish globe with its one venerable
+gold fish.  That day Miss Baker had been doing a bit of
+washing; two pocket handkerchiefs, still moist, adhered to
+the window panes, drying in the sun.
+
+"Oh, I guess you got something you don't want," Maria went
+on, peering into the corners of the room.  "Look-a-here what
+Mister Grannis gi' me," and she held out the yellow pitcher. 
+Instantly Miss Baker was in a quiver of confusion.  Every
+word spoken aloud could be perfectly heard in the next room. 
+What a stupid drab was this Maria!  Could anything be more
+trying than this position?
+
+"Ain't that right, Mister Grannis?" called Maria; "didn't
+you gi' me this pitcher?"  Old Grannis affected not to hear;
+perspiration stood on his forehead; his timidity overcame
+him as if he were a ten-year-old schoolboy.  He half rose
+from his chair, his fingers dancing nervously upon his chin.
+
+Maria opened Miss Baker's closet unconcernedly. "What's the
+matter with these old shoes?" she exclaimed, turning about
+with a pair of half-worn silk gaiters in her hand.  They
+were by no means old enough to throw away, but Miss
+Baker was almost beside herself.  There was no telling what
+might happen next.  Her only thought was to be rid of Maria.
+
+"Yes, yes, anything.  You can have them; but go, go. There's
+nothing else, not a thing."
+
+Maria went out into the hall, leaving Miss Baker's door wide
+open, as if maliciously.  She had left the dirty pillow-case
+on the floor in the hall, and she stood outside, between the
+two open doors, stowing away the old pitcher and the half-
+worn silk shoes.  She made remarks at the top of her voice,
+calling now to Miss Baker, now to Old Grannis.  In a way she
+brought the two old people face to face.  Each time they
+were forced to answer her questions it was as if they were
+talking directly to each other.
+
+"These here are first-rate shoes, Miss Baker.  Look here,
+Mister Grannis, get on to the shoes Miss Baker gi' me.  You
+ain't got a pair you don't want, have you?  You two people
+have less junk than any one else in the flat.  How do you
+manage, Mister Grannis?  You old bachelors are just like old
+maids, just as neat as pins.  You two are just alike--you
+and Mister Grannis--ain't you, Miss Baker?"
+
+Nothing could have been more horribly constrained, more
+awkward.  The two old people suffered veritable torture. 
+When Maria had gone, each heaved a sigh of unspeakable
+relief.  Softly they pushed to their doors, leaving open a
+space of half a dozen inches.  Old Grannis went back to his
+binding.  Miss Baker brewed a cup of tea to quiet her
+nerves.  Each tried to regain their composure, but in vain. 
+Old Grannis's fingers trembled so that he pricked them with
+his needle.  Miss Baker dropped her spoon twice.  Their
+nervousness would not wear off.  They were perturbed, upset. 
+In a word, the afternoon was spoiled.
+
+Maria went on about the flat from room to room.  She had
+already paid Marcus Schouler a visit early that morning
+before he had gone out.  Marcus had sworn at her, excitedly
+vociferating; "No, by damn!  No, he hadn't a thing for her;
+he hadn't, for a fact. It was a positive persecution.  Every
+day his privacy was invaded.  He would complain to the
+landlady, he would. He'd move out of the place."  In the
+end he had given Maria seven empty whiskey flasks, an iron
+grate, and ten cents--the latter because he said she wore
+her hair like a girl he used to know.
+
+After coming from Miss Baker's room Maria knocked at
+McTeague's door.  The dentist was lying on the bed-lounge in
+his stocking feet, doing nothing apparently, gazing up at
+the ceiling, lost in thought.
+
+Since he had spoken to Trina Sieppe, asking her so abruptly
+to marry him, McTeague had passed a week of torment.  For
+him there was no going back.  It was Trina now, and none
+other.  It was all one with him that his best friend,
+Marcus, might be in love with the same girl.  He must have
+Trina in spite of everything; he would have her even in
+spite of herself.  He did not stop to reflect about the
+matter; he followed his desire blindly, recklessly, furious
+and raging at every obstacle.  And she had cried "No, no!"
+back at him; he could not forget that.  She, so small and
+pale and delicate, had held him at bay, who was so huge, so
+immensely strong.
+
+Besides that, all the charm of their intimacy was gone.
+After that unhappy sitting, Trina was no longer frank and
+straight-forward.  Now she was circumspect, reserved,
+distant. He could no longer open his mouth; words failed
+him.  At one sitting in particular they had said but good-
+day and good-by to each other.  He felt that he was clumsy
+and ungainly.  He told himself that she despised him.
+
+But the memory of her was with him constantly.  Night after
+night he lay broad awake thinking of Trina, wondering about
+her, racked with the infinite desire of her.  His head burnt
+and throbbed.  The palms of his hands were dry.  He dozed
+and woke, and walked aimlessly about the dark room, bruising
+himself against the three chairs drawn up "at attention"
+under the steel engraving, and stumbling over the stone pug
+dog that sat in front of the little stove.
+
+Besides this, the jealousy of Marcus Schouler harassed him.
+Maria Macapa, coming into his "Parlor" to ask for junk,
+found him flung at length upon the bed-lounge, gnawing at
+his fingers in an excess of silent fury.  At lunch that
+day Marcus had told him of an excursion that was planned for
+the next Sunday afternoon.  Mr. Sieppe, Trina's father,
+belonged to a rifle club that was to hold a meet at
+Schuetzen Park across the bay.  All the Sieppes were going;
+there was to be a basket picnic. Marcus, as usual, was
+invited to be one of the party.  McTeague was in agony.  It
+was his first experience, and he suffered all the worse for
+it because he was totally unprepared.  What miserable
+complication was this in which he found himself involved? 
+It seemed so simple to him since he loved Trina to take her
+straight to himself, stopping at nothing, asking no
+questions, to have her, and by main strength to carry her
+far away somewhere, he did not know exactly where, to some
+vague country, some undiscovered place where every day was
+Sunday.
+
+"Got any junk?"
+
+"Huh?  What?  What is it?" exclaimed McTeague, suddenly
+rousing up from the lounge.  Often Maria did very well in
+the "Dental Parlors."  McTeague was continually breaking
+things which he was too stupid to have mended; for him
+anything that was broken was lost.  Now it was a cuspidor,
+now a fire-shovel for the little stove, now a China shaving
+mug.
+
+"Got any junk?"
+
+"I don't know--I don't remember," muttered McTeague.  Maria
+roamed about the room, McTeague following her in his huge
+stockinged feet.  All at once she pounced upon a sheaf of
+old hand instruments in a coverless cigar-box, pluggers,
+hard bits, and excavators.  Maria had long coveted such a
+find in McTeague's "Parlor," knowing it should be somewhere
+about.  The instruments were of the finest tempered steel
+and really valuable.
+
+"Say, Doctor, I can have these, can't I?" exclaimed Maria. 
+"You got no more use for them."  McTeague was not at all sure
+of this.  There were many in the sheaf that might be
+repaired, reshaped.
+
+"No, no," he said, wagging his head.  But Maria Macapa,
+knowing with whom she had to deal, at once let loose a
+torrent of words.  She made the dentist believe that he had
+no right to withhold them, that he had promised to save
+them for her.  She affected a great indignation, pursing her
+lips and putting her chin in the air as though wounded in
+some finer sense, changing so rapidly from one mood to
+another, filling the room with such shrill clamor, that
+McTeague was dazed and benumbed.
+
+"Yes, all right, all right," he said, trying to make himself
+heard.  "It WOULD be mean.  I don't want 'em."  As he
+turned from her to pick up the box, Maria took advantage of
+the moment to steal three "mats" of sponge-gold out of the
+glass saucer. Often she stole McTeague's gold, almost under
+his very eyes; indeed, it was so easy to do so that there
+was but little pleasure in the theft.  Then Maria took
+herself off.  McTeague returned to the sofa and flung
+himself upon it face downward.
+
+A little before supper time Maria completed her search. The
+flat was cleaned of its junk from top to bottom. The dirty
+pillow-case was full to bursting.  She took advantage of the
+supper hour to carry her bundle around the corner and up
+into the alley where Zerkow lived.
+
+When Maria entered his shop, Zerkow had just come in from
+his daily rounds.  His decrepit wagon stood in front of his
+door like a stranded wreck; the miserable horse, with its
+lamentable swollen joints, fed greedily upon an armful of
+spoiled hay in a shed at the back.
+
+The interior of the junk shop was dark and damp, and foul
+with all manner of choking odors.  On the walls, on the
+floor, and hanging from the rafters was a world of debris,
+dust-blackened, rust-corroded.  Everything was there, every
+trade was represented, every class of society; things of
+iron and cloth and wood; all the detritus that a great city
+sloughs off in its daily life.  Zerkow's junk shop was the
+last abiding-place, the almshouse, of such articles as had
+outlived their usefulness.
+
+Maria found Zerkow himself in the back room, cooking some
+sort of a meal over an alcohol stove.  Zerkow was a Polish
+Jew--curiously enough his hair was fiery red. He was a dry,
+shrivelled old man of sixty odd.  He had the thin, eager,
+cat-like lips of the covetous; eyes that had grown keen as
+those of a lynx from long searching amidst muck and
+debris; and claw-like, prehensile fingers--the fingers of a
+man who accumulates, but never disburses.  It was impossible
+to look at Zerkow and not know instantly that greed--
+inordinate, insatiable greed--was the dominant passion of
+the man.  He was the Man with the Rake, groping hourly in
+the muck-heap of the city for gold, for gold, for gold.  It
+was his dream, his passion; at every instant he seemed to
+feel the generous solid weight of the crude fat metal in his
+palms.  The glint of it was constantly in his eyes; the
+jangle of it sang forever in his ears as the jangling of
+cymbals.
+
+"Who is it?  Who is it?" exclaimed Zerkow, as he heard
+Maria's footsteps in the outer room.  His voice was faint,
+husky, reduced almost to a whisper by his prolonged habit of
+street crying.
+
+"Oh, it's you again, is it?" he added, peering through the
+gloom of the shop.  "Let's see; you've been here before,
+ain't you? You're the Mexican woman from Polk Street. 
+Macapa's your name, hey?"
+
+Maria nodded.  "Had a flying squirrel an' let him go," she
+muttered, absently.  Zerkow was puzzled; he looked at her
+sharply for a moment, then dismissed the matter with a
+movement of his head.
+
+"Well, what you got for me?" he said.  He left his supper to
+grow cold, absorbed at once in the affair.
+
+Then a long wrangle began.  Every bit of junk in Maria's
+pillow-case was discussed and weighed and disputed.  They
+clamored into each other's faces over Old Grannis's cracked
+pitcher, over Miss Baker's silk gaiters, over Marcus
+Schouler's whiskey flasks, reaching the climax of
+disagreement when it came to McTeague's instruments.
+
+"Ah, no, no!" shouted Maria.  "Fifteen cents for the lot!  I
+might as well make you a Christmas present!  Besides, I got
+some gold fillings off him; look at um."
+
+Zerkow drew a quick breath as the three pellets suddenly
+flashed in Maria's palm.  There it was, the virgin metal,
+the pure, unalloyed ore, his dream, his consuming desire. 
+His fingers twitched and hooked themselves into his
+palms, his thin lips drew tight across his teeth.
+
+"Ah, you got some gold," he muttered, reaching for it.
+
+Maria shut her fist over the pellets.  "The gold goes with
+the others," she declared.  "You'll gi' me a fair price for
+the lot, or I'll take um back."
+
+In the end a bargain was struck that satisfied Maria. 
+Zerkow was not one who would let gold go out of his house. 
+He counted out to her the price of all her junk, grudging
+each piece of money as if it had been the blood of his
+veins.  The affair was concluded.
+
+But Zerkow still had something to say.  As Maria folded up
+the pillow-case and rose to go, the old Jew said:
+
+"Well, see here a minute, we'll--you'll have a drink before
+you go, won't you? Just to show that it's all right between
+us."  Maria sat down again.
+
+"Yes, I guess I'll have a drink," she answered.
+
+Zerkow took down a whiskey bottle and a red glass tumbler
+with a broken base from a cupboard on the wall.  The two
+drank together, Zerkow from the bottle, Maria from the
+broken tumbler.  They wiped their lips slowly, drawing
+breath again.  There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Say," said Zerkow at last, "how about those gold dishes you
+told me about the last time you were here?"
+
+"What gold dishes?" inquired Maria, puzzled.
+
+"Ah, you know," returned the other.  "The plate your father
+owned in Central America a long time ago.  Don't you know,
+it rang like so many bells?  Red gold, you know, like
+oranges?"
+
+"Ah," said Maria, putting her chin in the air as if she knew
+a long story about that if she had a mind to tell it.  "Ah,
+yes, that gold service."
+
+"Tell us about it again," said Zerkow, his bloodless lower
+lip moving against the upper, his claw-like fingers feeling
+about his mouth and chin.  "Tell us about it; go on."
+
+He was breathing short, his limbs trembled a little.  It was
+as if some hungry beast of prey had scented a quarry.  Maria
+still refused, putting up her head, insisting that she had
+to be going.
+
+"Let's have it," insisted the Jew.  "Take another
+drink."  Maria took another swallow of the whiskey.  "Now, go
+on," repeated Zerkow; "let's have the story."  Maria squared
+her elbows on the deal table, looking straight in front of
+her with eyes that saw nothing.
+
+"Well, it was this way," she began.  "It was when I was
+little. My folks must have been rich, oh, rich into the
+millions--coffee, I guess--and there was a large house, but
+I can only remember the plate.  Oh, that service of plate!  
+It was wonderful.  There were more than a hundred pieces,
+and every one of them gold.  You should have seen the sight
+when the leather trunk was opened.  It fair dazzled your
+eyes.  It was a yellow blaze like a fire, like a sunset;
+such a glory, all piled up together, one piece over the
+other.  Why, if the room was dark you'd think you could see
+just the same with all that glitter there.  There wa'n't a
+piece that was so much as scratched; every one was like a
+mirror, smooth and bright, just like a little pool when the
+sun shines into it.  There was dinner dishes and soup
+tureens and pitchers; and great, big platters as long as
+that and wide too; and cream-jugs and bowls with carved
+handles, all vines and things; and drinking mugs, every one
+a different shape; and dishes for gravy and sauces; and then
+a great, big punch-bowl with a ladle, and the bowl was all
+carved out with figures and bunches of grapes.  Why, just
+only that punch-bowl was worth a fortune, I guess.  When all
+that plate was set out on a table, it was a sight for a king
+to look at. Such a service as that was!  Each piece was
+heavy, oh, so heavy! and thick, you know; thick, fat gold,
+nothing but gold--red, shining, pure gold, orange red--and
+when you struck it with your knuckle, ah, you should have
+heard!  No church bell ever rang sweeter or clearer.  It was
+soft gold, too; you could bite into it, and leave the dent
+of your teeth.  Oh, that gold plate!  I can see it just as
+plain--solid, solid, heavy, rich, pure gold; nothing but
+gold, gold, heaps and heaps of it. What a service that was!"
+
+Maria paused, shaking her head, thinking over the vanished
+splendor.  Illiterate enough, unimaginative enough on all
+other subjects, her distorted wits called up this picture
+with marvellous distinctness.  It was plain she saw the
+plate clearly. Her description was accurate, was almost
+eloquent.
+
+Did that wonderful service of gold plate ever exist outside
+of her diseased imagination?  Was Maria actually remembering
+some reality of a childhood of barbaric luxury?  Were her
+parents at one time possessed of an incalculable fortune
+derived from some Central American coffee plantation, a
+fortune long since confiscated by armies of
+insurrectionists, or squandered in the support of
+revolutionary governments?
+
+It was not impossible.  Of Maria Macapa's past prior to the
+time of her appearance at the "flat" absolutely nothing
+could be learned.  She suddenly appeared from the unknown, a
+strange woman of a mixed race, sane on all subjects but that
+of the famous service of gold plate; but unusual, complex,
+mysterious, even at her best.
+
+But what misery Zerkow endured as he listened to her tale!  
+For he chose to believe it, forced himself to believe it,
+lashed and harassed by a pitiless greed that checked at no
+tale of treasure, however preposterous.  The story ravished
+him with delight.  He was near someone who had possessed
+this wealth.  He saw someone who had seen this pile of gold. 
+He seemed near it; it was there, somewhere close by, under
+his eyes, under his fingers; it was red, gleaming,
+ponderous.  He gazed about him wildly; nothing, nothing but
+the sordid junk shop and the rust-corroded tins.  What
+exasperation, what positive misery, to be so near to it and
+yet to know that it was irrevocably, irretrievably lost!  A
+spasm of anguish passed through him.  He gnawed at his
+bloodless lips, at the hopelessness of it, the rage, the
+fury of it.
+
+"Go on, go on," he whispered; "let's have it all over again.
+Polished like a mirror, hey, and heavy?  Yes, I know, I
+know.  A punch-bowl worth a fortune.  Ah! and you saw it,
+you had it all!"
+
+Maria rose to go.  Zerkow accompanied her to the door,
+urging another drink upon her.
+
+"Come again, come again," he croaked.  "Don't wait till
+you've got junk; come any time you feel like it, and tell me
+more about the plate."
+
+He followed her a step down the alley.
+
+"How much do you think it was worth?" he inquired,
+anxiously.
+
+"Oh, a million dollars," answered Maria, vaguely.
+
+When Maria had gone, Zerkow returned to the back room of the
+shop, and stood in front of the alcohol stove, looking down
+into his cold dinner, preoccupied, thoughtful.
+
+"A million dollars," he muttered in his rasping, guttural
+whisper, his finger-tips wandering over his thin, cat-like
+lips.  "A golden service worth a million dollars; a punch-
+bowl worth a fortune; red gold plates, heaps and piles. 
+God!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+
+The days passed.  McTeague had finished the operation on
+Trina's teeth.  She did not come any more to the "Parlors."
+Matters had readjusted themselves a little between the two
+during the last sittings.  Trina yet stood upon her reserve,
+and McTeague still felt himself shambling and ungainly in
+her presence; but that constraint and embarrassment that had
+followed upon McTeague's blundering declaration broke up
+little by little.  In spite of themselves they were
+gradually resuming the same relative positions they had
+occupied when they had first met.
+
+But McTeague suffered miserably for all that.  He never
+would have Trina, he saw that clearly.  She was too good for
+him; too delicate, too refined, too prettily made for him,
+who was so coarse, so enormous, so stupid.  She was for
+someone else--Marcus, no doubt--or at least for some finer-
+grained man. She should have gone to some other dentist;
+the young fellow on the corner, for instance, the poser, the
+rider of bicycles, the courser of grey-hounds.  McTeague
+began to loathe and to envy this fellow.  He spied upon him
+going in and out of his office, and noted his salmon-pink
+neckties and his astonishing waistcoats.
+
+One Sunday, a few days after Trina's last sitting, McTeague
+met Marcus Schouler at his table in the car conductors'
+coffee-joint, next to the harness shop.
+
+"What you got to do this afternoon, Mac?" inquired the
+other, as they ate their suet pudding.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," replied McTeague, shaking his head.  His
+mouth was full of pudding.  It made him warm to eat, and
+little beads of perspiration stood across the bridge of his
+nose.  He looked forward to an afternoon passed in his
+operating chair as usual.  On leaving his "Parlors" he had
+put ten cents into his pitcher and had left it at Frenna's
+to be filled.
+
+"What do you say we take a walk, huh?" said Marcus.  "Ah,
+that's the thing--a walk, a long walk, by damn!  It'll be
+outa sight. I got to take three or four of the dogs out for
+exercise, anyhow.  Old Grannis thinks they need ut.  We'll
+walk out to the Presidio."
+
+Of late it had become the custom of the two friends to take
+long walks from time to time.  On holidays and on those
+Sunday afternoons when Marcus was not absent with the
+Sieppes they went out together, sometimes to the park,
+sometimes to the Presidio, sometimes even across the bay. 
+They took a great pleasure in each other's company, but
+silently and with reservation, having the masculine horror
+of any demonstration of friendship.
+
+They walked for upwards of five hours that afternoon, out
+the length of California Street, and across the Presidio
+Reservation to the Golden Gate.  Then they turned, and,
+following the line of the shore, brought up at the Cliff
+House.  Here they halted for beer, Marcus swearing that his
+mouth was as dry as a hay-bin.  Before starting on their
+walk they had gone around to the little dog hospital, and
+Marcus had let out four of the convalescents, crazed with
+joy at the release.
+
+"Look at that dog," he cried to McTeague, showing him a
+finely-bred Irish setter.  "That's the dog that belonged
+to the duck on the avenue, the dog we called for that day. 
+I've bought 'um.  The duck thought he had the distemper, and
+just threw 'um away.  Nothun wrong with 'um but a little
+catarrh.  Ain't he a bird?  Say, ain't he a bird?  Look at
+his flag; it's perfect; and see how he carries his tail on a
+line with his back.  See how stiff and white his whiskers
+are.  Oh, by damn! you can't fool me on a dog.  That dog's a
+winner."
+
+At the Cliff House the two sat down to their beer in a quiet
+corner of the billiard-room.  There were but two players.
+Somewhere in another part of the building a mammoth music-
+box was jangling out a quickstep.  From outside came the
+long, rhythmical rush of the surf and the sonorous barking
+of the seals upon the seal rocks.  The four dogs curled
+themselves down upon the sanded floor.
+
+"Here's how," said Marcus, half emptying his glass.  "Ah-h!"
+he added, with a long breath, "that's good; it is, for a
+fact."
+
+For the last hour of their walk Marcus had done nearly all
+the talking.  McTeague merely answering him by uncertain
+movements of the head.  For that matter, the dentist had
+been silent and preoccupied throughout the whole afternoon. 
+At length Marcus noticed it.  As he set down his glass with
+a bang he suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"What's the matter with you these days, Mac? You got a bean
+about somethun, hey?  Spit ut out."
+
+"No, no," replied McTeague, looking about on the floor,
+rolling his eyes; "nothing, no, no."
+
+"Ah, rats!" returned the other.  McTeague kept silence.  The
+two billiard players departed.  The huge music-box struck
+into a fresh tune.
+
+"Huh!" exclaimed Marcus, with a short laugh, "guess you're
+in love."
+
+McTeague gasped, and shuffled his enormous feet under the
+table.
+
+"Well, somethun's bitun you, anyhow," pursued Marcus. 
+"Maybe I can help you.  We're pals, you know.  Better tell
+me what's up; guess we can straighten ut out.  Ah, go
+on; spit ut out."
+
+The situation was abominable.  McTeague could not rise to
+it. Marcus was his best friend, his only friend.  They were
+"pals" and McTeague was very fond of him.  Yet they were
+both in love, presumably, with the same girl, and now Marcus
+would try and force the secret out of him; would rush
+blindly at the rock upon which the two must split, stirred
+by the very best of motives, wishing only to be of service. 
+Besides this, there was nobody to whom McTeague would have
+better preferred to tell his troubles than to Marcus, and
+yet about this trouble, the greatest trouble of his life, he
+must keep silent; must refrain from speaking of it to Marcus
+above everybody.
+
+McTeague began dimly to feel that life was too much for him.
+How had it all come about?  A month ago he was perfectly
+content; he was calm and peaceful, taking his little
+pleasures as he found them.  His life had shaped itself;
+was, no doubt, to continue always along these same lines.  A
+woman had entered his small world and instantly there was
+discord.  The disturbing element had appeared.  Wherever the
+woman had put her foot a score of distressing complications
+had sprung up, like the sudden growth of strange and
+puzzling flowers.
+
+"Say, Mac, go on; let's have ut straight," urged Marcus,
+leaning toward him.  "Has any duck been doing you dirt?" he
+cried, his face crimson on the instant.
+
+"No," said McTeague, helplessly.
+
+"Come along, old man," persisted Marcus; "let's have ut. 
+What is the row?  I'll do all I can to help you."
+
+It was more than McTeague could bear.  The situation had got
+beyond him.  Stupidly he spoke, his hands deep in his
+pockets, his head rolled forward.
+
+"It's--it's Miss Sieppe," he said.
+
+"Trina, my cousin?  How do you mean?" inquired Marcus
+sharply.
+
+"I--I--I don' know," stammered McTeague, hopelessly
+confounded.
+
+"You mean," cried Marcus, suddenly enlightened, "that
+you are--that you, too."
+
+McTeague stirred in his chair, looking at the walls of the
+room, avoiding the other's glance.  He nodded his head, then
+suddenly broke out:
+
+"I can't help it.  It ain't my fault, is it?"
+
+Marcus was struck dumb; he dropped back in his chair
+breathless.  Suddenly McTeague found his tongue.
+
+"I tell you, Mark, I can't help it.  I don't know how it
+happened.  It came on so slow that I was, that--that--that
+it was done before I knew it, before I could help myself.  I
+know we're pals, us two, and I knew how--how you and Miss
+Sieppe were.  I know now, I knew then; but that wouldn't
+have made any difference.  Before I knew it--it--it--there I
+was.  I can't help it.  I wouldn't 'a' had ut happen for
+anything, if I could 'a' stopped it, but I don' know, it's
+something that's just stronger than you are, that's all. 
+She came there--Miss Sieppe came to the parlors there three
+or four times a week, and she was the first girl I had ever
+known,--and you don' know!  Why, I was so close to her I
+touched her face every minute, and her mouth, and smelt her
+hair and her breath--oh, you don't know anything about it. 
+I can't give you any idea.  I don' know exactly myself; I
+only know how I'm fixed.  I--I--it's been done; it's too
+late, there's no going back.  Why, I can't think of anything
+else night and day.  It's everything. It's--it's--oh, it's
+everything!  I--I--why, Mark, it's everything--I can't
+explain."  He made a helpless movement with both hands.
+
+Never had McTeague been so excited; never had he made so
+long a speech.  His arms moved in fierce, uncertain
+gestures, his face flushed, his enormous jaws shut together
+with a sharp click at every pause.  It was like some
+colossal brute trapped in a delicate, invisible mesh,
+raging, exasperated, powerless to extricate himself.
+
+Marcus Schouler said nothing.  There was a long silence. 
+Marcus got up and walked to the window and stood looking
+out, but seeing nothing.  "Well, who would have thought of
+this?" he muttered under his breath.  Here was a fix.
+Marcus cared for Trina.  There was no doubt in his mind
+about that.  He looked forward eagerly to the Sunday
+afternoon excursions.  He liked to be with Trina.  He, too,
+felt the charm of the little girl--the charm of the small,
+pale forehead; the little chin thrust out as if in
+confidence and innocence; the heavy, odorous crown of black
+hair.  He liked her immensely.  Some day he would speak; he
+would ask her to marry him.  Marcus put off this matter of
+marriage to some future period; it would be some time--a
+year, perhaps, or two.  The thing did not take definite
+shape in his mind.  Marcus "kept company" with his cousin
+Trina, but he knew plenty of other girls.  For the matter of
+that, he liked all girls pretty well.  Just now the
+singleness and strength of McTeague's passion startled him. 
+McTeague would marry Trina that very afternoon if she would
+have him; but would he--Marcus?  No, he would not; if it
+came to that, no, he would not.  Yet he knew he liked Trina. 
+He could say--yes, he could say--he loved her.  She was his
+"girl."  The Sieppes acknowledged him as Trina's "young
+man."  Marcus came back to the table and sat down sideways
+upon it.
+
+"Well, what are we going to do about it, Mac?" he said.
+
+"I don' know," answered McTeague, in great distress.  "I
+don' want anything to--to come between us, Mark."
+
+"Well, nothun will, you bet!" vociferated the other. "No,
+sir; you bet not, Mac."
+
+Marcus was thinking hard.  He could see very clearly that
+McTeague loved Trina more than he did; that in some strange
+way this huge, brutal fellow was capable of a greater
+passion than himself, who was twice as clever.  Suddenly
+Marcus jumped impetuously to a resolution.
+
+"Well, say, Mac," he cried, striking the table with his
+fist, "go ahead.  I guess you--you want her pretty bad. I'll
+pull out; yes, I will.  I'll give her up to you, old man."
+
+The sense of his own magnanimity all at once overcame 
+Marcus. He saw himself as another man, very noble, self-
+sacrificing; he stood apart and watched this second self
+with boundless admiration and with infinite pity.  He
+was so good, so magnificent, so heroic, that he almost
+sobbed.  Marcus made a sweeping gesture of resignation,
+throwing out both his arms, crying:
+
+"Mac, I'll give her up to you.  I won't stand between you."
+There were actually tears in Marcus's eyes as he spoke. 
+There was no doubt he thought himself sincere.  At that
+moment he almost believed he loved Trina conscientiously,
+that he was sacrificing himself for the sake of his friend. 
+The two stood up and faced each other, gripping hands.  It
+was a great moment; even McTeague felt the drama of it. 
+What a fine thing was this friendship between men! the
+dentist treats his friend for an ulcerated tooth and refuses
+payment; the friend reciprocates by giving up his girl. 
+This was nobility.  Their mutual affection and esteem
+suddenly increased enormously.  It was Damon and Pythias; it
+was David and Jonathan; nothing could ever estrange them. 
+Now it was for life or death.
+
+"I'm much obliged," murmured McTeague.  He could think of
+nothing better to say.  "I'm much obliged," he repeated;
+"much obliged, Mark."
+
+"That's all right, that's all right," returned Marcus
+Schouler, bravely, and it occurred to him to add, "You'll be
+happy together.  Tell her for me--tell her---tell her----"
+Marcus could not go on.  He wrung the dentist's hand
+silently.
+
+It had not appeared to either of them that Trina might
+refuse McTeague.  McTeague's spirits rose at once.  In
+Marcus's withdrawal he fancied he saw an end to all his
+difficulties. Everything would come right, after all.  The
+strained, exalted state of Marcus's nerves ended by putting
+him into fine humor as well.  His grief suddenly changed to
+an excess of gaiety.  The afternoon was a success.  They
+slapped each other on the back with great blows of the open
+palms, and they drank each other's health in a third round
+of beer.
+
+Ten minutes after his renunciation of Trina Sieppe, Marcus
+astounded McTeague with a tremendous feat.
+
+"Looka here, Mac.  I know somethun you can't do.  I'll bet
+you two bits I'll stump you."  They each put a quarter on
+the table.  "Now watch me," cried Marcus.  He caught up
+a billiard ball from the rack, poised it a moment in front
+of his face, then with a sudden, horrifying distension of
+his jaws crammed it into his mouth, and shut his lips over
+it.
+
+For an instant McTeague was stupefied, his eyes bulging. 
+Then an enormous laugh shook him.  He roared and shouted,
+swaying in his chair, slapping his knee.  What a josher was
+this Marcus!  Sure, you never could tell what he would do
+next.  Marcus slipped the ball out, wiped it on the
+tablecloth, and passed it to McTeague.
+
+"Now let's see you do it."
+
+McTeague fell suddenly grave.  The matter was serious.  He
+parted his thick mustaches and opened his enormous jaws like
+an anaconda.  The ball disappeared inside his mouth.  Marcus
+applauded vociferously, shouting, "Good work!"  McTeague
+reached for the money and put it in his vest pocket, nodding
+his head with a knowing air.
+
+Then suddenly his face grew purple, his jaws moved
+convulsively, he pawed at his cheeks with both hands.  The
+billiard ball had slipped into his mouth easily enough; now,
+however, he could not get it out again.
+
+It was terrible.  The dentist rose to his feet, stumbling
+about among the dogs, his face working, his eyes starting. 
+Try as he would, he could not stretch his jaws wide enough
+to slip the ball out.  Marcus lost his wits, swearing at the
+top of his voice.  McTeague sweated with terror;
+inarticulate sounds came from his crammed mouth; he waved
+his arms wildly; all the four dogs caught the excitement and
+began to bark.  A waiter rushed in, the two billiard players
+returned, a little crowd formed. There was a veritable
+scene.
+
+All at once the ball slipped out of McTeague's jaws as
+easily as it had gone in.  What a relief!  He dropped into a
+chair, wiping his forehead, gasping for breath.
+
+On the strength of the occasion Marcus Schouler invited the
+entire group to drink with him.
+
+By the time the affair was over and the group dispersed it
+was after five.  Marcus and McTeague decided they would
+ride home on the cars.  But they soon found this impossible. 
+The dogs would not follow.  Only Alexander, Marcus's new
+setter, kept his place at the rear of the car.  The other
+three lost their senses immediately, running wildly about
+the streets with their heads in the air, or suddenly
+starting off at a furious gallop directly away from the car. 
+Marcus whistled and shouted and lathered with rage in vain. 
+The two friends were obliged to walk.  When they finally
+reached Polk Street, Marcus shut up the three dogs in the
+hospital.  Alexander he brought back to the flat with him.
+
+There was a minute back yard in the rear, where Marcus had
+made a kennel for Alexander out of an old water barrel. 
+Before he thought of his own supper Marcus put Alexander to
+bed and fed him a couple of dog biscuits.  McTeague had
+followed him to the yard to keep him company.  Alexander
+settled to his supper at once, chewing vigorously at the
+biscuit, his head on one side.
+
+"What you going to do about this--about that--about--about
+my cousin now, Mac?" inquired Marcus.
+
+McTeague shook his head helplessly.  It was dark by now and
+cold.  The little back yard was grimy and full of odors.
+McTeague was tired with their long walk.  All his uneasiness
+about his affair with Trina had returned.  No, surely she
+was not for him.  Marcus or some other man would win her in
+the end.  What could she ever see to desire in him--in him,
+a clumsy giant, with hands like wooden mallets?  She had
+told him once that she would not marry him.  Was that not
+final?
+
+"I don' know what to do, Mark," he said.
+
+"Well, you must make up to her now," answered Marcus. "Go
+and call on her."
+
+McTeague started.  He had not thought of calling on her. 
+The idea frightened him a little.
+
+"Of course," persisted Marcus, "that's the proper caper. 
+What did you expect? Did you think you was never going to
+see her again?"
+
+"I don' know, I don' know," responded the dentist, looking
+stupidly at the dog.
+
+"You know where they live," continued Marcus Schouler.
+"Over at B Street station, across the bay.  I'll take you
+over there whenever you want to go.  I tell you what, we'll
+go over there Washington's Birthday.  That's this next
+Wednesday; sure, they'll be glad to see you."  It was good of
+Marcus.  All at once McTeague rose to an appreciation of
+what his friend was doing for him.  He stammered:
+
+"Say, Mark--you're--you're all right, anyhow."
+
+"Why, pshaw!" said Marcus.  "That's all right, old man.  I'd
+like to see you two fixed, that's all.  We'll go over
+Wednesday, sure."
+
+They turned back to the house.  Alexander left off eating
+and watched them go away, first with one eye, then with the
+other. But he was too self-respecting to whimper.  However,
+by the time the two friends had reached the second landing
+on the back stairs a terrible commotion was under way in the
+little yard. They rushed to an open window at the end of the
+hall and looked down.
+
+A thin board fence separated the flat's back yard from that
+used by the branch post-office.  In the latter place lived a
+collie dog.  He and Alexander had smelt each other out,
+blowing through the cracks of the fence at each other. 
+Suddenly the quarrel had exploded on either side of the
+fence.  The dogs raged at each other, snarling and barking,
+frantic with hate.  Their teeth gleamed.  They tore at the
+fence with their front paws.  They filled the whole night
+with their clamor.
+
+"By damn!" cried Marcus, "they don't love each other. Just
+listen; wouldn't that make a fight if the two got together?
+Have to try it some day."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+
+Wednesday morning, Washington's Birthday, McTeague rose very
+early and shaved himself.  Besides the six mournful
+concertina airs, the dentist knew one song.  Whenever he
+shaved, he sung this song; never at any other time.  His
+voice was a bellowing roar, enough to make the window sashes
+rattle.  Just now he woke up all the lodgers in his hall
+with it.  It was a lamentable wail:
+
+
+     "No one to love, none to caress,
+      Left all alone in this world's wilderness."
+
+
+As he paused to strop his razor, Marcus came into his room,
+half-dressed, a startling phantom in red flannels.
+
+Marcus often ran back and forth between his room and the
+dentist's "Parlors" in all sorts of undress.  Old Miss Baker
+had seen him thus several times through her half-open door,
+as she sat in her room listening and waiting.  The old
+dressmaker was shocked out of all expression.  She was
+outraged, offended, pursing her lips, putting up her head. 
+She talked of complaining to the landlady.  "And Mr. Grannis
+right next door, too.  You can understand how trying it is
+for both of us."  She would come out in the hall after one
+of these apparitions, her little false curls shaking,
+talking loud and shrill to any one in reach of her voice.
+
+"Well," Marcus would shout, "shut your door, then, if you
+don't want to see.  Look out, now, here I come again.  Not
+even a porous plaster on me this time."
+
+On this Wednesday morning Marcus called McTeague out into
+the hall, to the head of the stairs that led down to the
+street door.
+
+"Come and listen to Maria, Mac," said he.
+
+Maria sat on the next to the lowest step, her chin
+propped by her two fists.  The red-headed Polish Jew, the
+ragman Zerkow, stood in the doorway.  He was talking
+eagerly.
+
+"Now, just once more, Maria," he was saying.  "Tell it to us
+just once more."  Maria's voice came up the stairway in a
+monotone.  Marcus and McTeague caught a phrase from time to
+time.
+
+"There were more than a hundred pieces, and every one of
+them gold--just that punch-bowl was worth a fortune-thick,
+fat, red gold."
+
+"Get onto to that, will you?" observed Marcus.  "The old
+skin has got her started on the plate.  Ain't they a pair
+for you?"
+
+"And it rang like bells, didn't it?" prompted Zerkow.
+
+"Sweeter'n church bells, and clearer."
+
+"Ah, sweeter'n bells.  Wasn't that punch-bowl awful heavy?"
+
+"All you could do to lift it."
+
+"I know.  Oh, I know," answered Zerkow, clawing at his lips.
+"Where did it all go to?  Where did it go?"
+
+Maria shook her head.
+
+"It's gone, anyhow."
+
+"Ah, gone, gone!  Think of it!  The punch-bowl gone, and the
+engraved ladle, and the plates and goblets.  What a sight it
+must have been all heaped together!"
+
+"It was a wonderful sight."
+
+"Yes, wonderful; it must have been."
+
+On the lower steps of that cheap flat, the Mexican woman and
+the red-haired Polish Jew mused long over that vanished,
+half-mythical gold plate.
+
+Marcus and the dentist spent Washington's Birthday across
+the bay.  The journey over was one long agony to McTeague. 
+He shook with a formless, uncertain dread; a dozen times he
+would have turned back had not Marcus been with him.  The
+stolid giant was as nervous as a schoolboy.  He fancied that
+his call upon Miss Sieppe was an outrageous affront.  She
+would freeze him with a stare; he would be shown the door,
+would be ejected, disgraced.
+
+As they got off the local train at B Street station they
+suddenly collided with the whole tribe of Sieppes--the
+mother, father, three children, and Trina--equipped for
+one of their eternal picnics.  They were to go to Schuetzen
+Park, within walking distance of the station.  They were
+grouped about four lunch baskets.  One of the children, a
+little boy, held a black greyhound by a rope around its
+neck.  Trina wore a blue cloth skirt, a striped shirt waist,
+and a white sailor; about her round waist was a belt of
+imitation alligator skin.
+
+At once Mrs. Sieppe began to talk to Marcus.  He had written
+of their coming, but the picnic had been decided upon after
+the arrival of his letter.  Mrs. Sieppe explained this to
+him.  She was an immense old lady with a pink face and
+wonderful hair, absolutely white.  The Sieppes were a
+German-Swiss family.
+
+"We go to der park, Schuetzen Park, mit alle dem childern, a
+little eggs-kursion, eh not soh?  We breathe der freshes
+air, a celubration, a pignic bei der seashore on.  Ach, dot
+wull be soh gay, ah?"
+
+"You bet it will.  It'll be outa sight," cried Marcus,
+enthusiastic in an instant.  "This is m' friend Doctor
+McTeague I wrote you about, Mrs. Sieppe."
+
+"Ach, der doktor," cried Mrs. Sieppe.
+
+McTeague was presented, shaking hands gravely as Marcus
+shouldered him from one to the other.
+
+Mr. Sieppe was a little man of a military aspect, full of
+importance, taking himself very seriously.  He was a member
+of a rifle team.  Over his shoulder was slung a Springfield
+rifle, while his breast was decorated by five bronze medals.
+
+Trina was delighted.  McTeague was dumfounded.  She appeared
+positively glad to see him.
+
+"How do you do, Doctor McTeague," she said, smiling at him
+and shaking his hand.  "It's nice to see you again.  Look,
+see how fine my filling is."  She lifted a corner of her lip
+and showed him the clumsy gold bridge.
+
+Meanwhile, Mr. Sieppe toiled and perspired.  Upon him
+devolved the responsibility of the excursion.  He seemed to
+consider it a matter of vast importance, a veritable
+expedition.
+
+"Owgooste!" he shouted to the little boy with the black
+greyhound, "you will der hound und basket number three
+carry. Der tervins," he added, calling to the two smallest
+boys, who were dressed exactly alike, "will releef one
+unudder mit der camp-stuhl und basket number four.  Dat is
+comprehend, hay? When we make der start, you childern will
+in der advance march. Dat is your orders.  But we do not
+start," he exclaimed, excitedly; "we remain.  Ach Gott,
+Selina, who does not arrive."
+
+Selina, it appeared, was a niece of Mrs. Sieppe's. They were
+on the point of starting without her, when she suddenly
+arrived, very much out of breath.  She was a slender,
+unhealthy looking girl, who overworked herself giving
+lessons in hand-painting at twenty-five cents an hour. 
+McTeague was presented.  They all began to talk at once,
+filling the little station-house with a confusion of
+tongues.
+
+"Attention!" cried Mr. Sieppe, his gold-headed cane in one
+hand, his Springfield in the other.  "Attention!  We
+depart."  The four little boys moved off ahead; the
+greyhound suddenly began to bark, and tug at his leash. The
+others picked up their bundles.
+
+"Vorwarts!" shouted Mr. Sieppe, waving his rifle and
+assuming the attitude of a lieutenant of infantry leading a
+charge.  The party set off down the railroad track.
+
+Mrs. Sieppe walked with her husband, who constantly left her
+side to shout an order up and down the line.  Marcus
+followed with Selina.  McTeague found himself with Trina at
+the end of the procession.
+
+"We go off on these picnics almost every week," said Trina,
+by way of a beginning, "and almost every holiday, too.  It
+is a custom."
+
+"Yes, yes, a custom," answered McTeague, nodding; "a custom
+--that's the word."
+
+"Don't you think picnics are fine fun, Doctor McTeague?" she
+continued.  "You take your lunch; you leave the dirty city
+all day; you race about in the open air, and when lunchtime
+comes, oh, aren't you hungry?  And the woods and the grass
+smell so fine!"
+
+"I don' know, Miss Sieppe," he answered, keeping his eyes
+fixed on the ground between the rails.  "I never went on
+a picnic."
+
+"Never went on a picnic?" she cried, astonished.  "Oh,
+you'll see what fun we'll have.  In the morning father and
+the children dig clams in the mud by the shore, an' we bake
+them, and--oh, there's thousands of things to do."
+
+"Once I went sailing on the bay," said McTeague.  "It was in
+a tugboat; we fished off the heads.  I caught three
+codfishes."
+
+"I'm afraid to go out on the bay," answered Trina, shaking
+her head, "sailboats tip over so easy.  A cousin of mine,
+Selina's brother, was drowned one Decoration Day.  They
+never found his body.  Can you swim, Doctor McTeague?"
+
+"I used to at the mine."
+
+"At the mine? Oh, yes, I remember, Marcus told me you were a
+miner once."
+
+"I was a car-boy; all the car-boys used to swim in the
+reservoir by the ditch every Thursday evening.  One of them
+was bit by a rattlesnake once while he was dressing.  He was
+a Frenchman, named Andrew.  He swelled up and began to
+twitch."
+
+"Oh, how I hate snakes!  They're so crawly and graceful--
+but, just the same, I like to watch them.  You know that
+drug store over in town that has a showcase full of live
+ones?"
+
+"We killed the rattler with a cart whip."
+
+"How far do you think you could swim?  Did you ever try? 
+D'you think you could swim a mile?"
+
+"A mile? I don't know.  I never tried.  I guess I could."
+
+"I can swim a little.  Sometimes we all go out to the
+Crystal Baths."
+
+"The Crystal Baths, huh? Can you swim across the tank?"
+
+"Oh, I can swim all right as long as papa holds my chin up.
+Soon as he takes his hand away, down I go.  Don't you hate
+to get water in your ears?"
+
+"Bathing's good for you."
+
+"If the water's too warm, it isn't.  It weakens you."
+
+Mr. Sieppe came running down the tracks, waving his cane.
+
+"To one side," he shouted, motioning them off the track;
+"der drain gomes."  A local passenger train was just passing
+B Street station, some quarter of a mile behind them.
+The party stood to one side to let it pass.  Marcus put a
+nickel and two crossed pins upon the rail, and waved his hat
+to the passengers as the train roared past. The children
+shouted shrilly.  When the train was gone, they all rushed
+to see the nickel and the crossed pins. The nickel had been
+jolted off, but the pins had been flattened out so that they
+bore a faint resemblance to opened scissors.  A great
+contention arose among the children for the possession of
+these "scissors."  Mr. Sieppe was obliged to intervene.  He
+reflected gravely.  It was a matter of tremendous moment. 
+The whole party halted, awaiting his decision.
+
+"Attend now," he suddenly exclaimed.  "It will not be soh
+soon. At der end of der day, ven we shall have home
+gecommen, den wull it pe adjudge, eh?  A REward of merit
+to him who der bes' pehaves.  It is an order. Vorwarts!"
+
+"That was a Sacramento train," said Marcus to Selina as they
+started off; "it was, for a fact."
+
+"I know a girl in Sacramento," Trina told McTeague. "She's
+forewoman in a glove store, and she's got consumption."
+
+"I was in Sacramento once," observed McTeague, "nearly eight
+years ago."
+
+"Is it a nice place--as nice as San Francisco?"
+
+"It's hot.  I practised there for a while."
+
+"I like San Francisco," said Trina, looking across the bay
+to where the city piled itself upon its hills.
+
+"So do I," answered McTeague.  "Do you like it better than
+living over here?"
+
+"Oh, sure, I wish we lived in the city.  If you want to go
+across for anything it takes up the whole day."
+
+"Yes, yes, the whole day--almost."
+
+"Do you know many people in the city?  Do you know anybody
+named Oelbermann?  That's my uncle.  He has a wholesale toy
+store in the Mission.  They say he's awful rich."
+
+"No, I don' know him."
+
+"His stepdaughter wants to be a nun.  Just fancy!  And Mr.
+Oelbermann won't have it.  He says it would be just like
+burying his child.  Yes, she wants to enter the convent
+of the Sacred Heart.  Are you a Catholic, Doctor McTeague?"
+
+"No.  No, I--"
+
+"Papa is a Catholic.  He goes to Mass on the feast days once
+in a while.  But mamma's Lutheran."
+
+"The Catholics are trying to get control of the schools,"
+observed McTeague, suddenly remembering one of Marcus's
+political tirades.
+
+"That's what cousin Mark says.  We are going to send the
+twins to the kindergarten next month."
+
+"What's the kindergarten?"
+
+"Oh, they teach them to make things out of straw and
+toothpicks--kind of a play place to keep them off the
+street."
+
+"There's one up on Sacramento Street, not far from Polk
+Street. I saw the sign."
+
+"I know where.  Why, Selina used to play the piano there."
+
+"Does she play the piano?"
+
+"Oh, you ought to hear her.  She plays fine.  Selina's very
+accomplished.  She paints, too."
+
+"I can play on the concertina."
+
+"Oh, can you?  I wish you'd brought it along.  Next time you
+will.  I hope you'll come often on our picnics.  You'll see
+what fun we'll have."
+
+"Fine day for a picnic, ain't it?  There ain't a cloud."
+
+"That's so," exclaimed Trina, looking up, "not a single
+cloud. Oh, yes; there is one, just over Telegraph Hill."
+
+"That's smoke."
+
+"No, it's a cloud.  Smoke isn't white that way."
+
+"'Tis a cloud."
+
+"I knew I was right.  I never say a thing unless I'm pretty
+sure."
+
+"It looks like a dog's head."
+
+"Don't it?  Isn't Marcus fond of dogs?"
+
+"He got a new dog last week--a setter."
+
+"Did he?"
+
+"Yes.  He and I took a lot of dogs from his hospital out
+for a walk to the Cliff House last Sunday, but we had to
+walk all the way home, because they wouldn't follow.  You've
+been out to the Cliff House?"
+
+"Not for a long time.  We had a picnic there one Fourth of
+July, but it rained.  Don't you love the ocean?"
+
+"Yes--yes, I like it pretty well."
+
+"Oh, I'd like to go off in one of those big sailing ships. 
+Just away, and away, and away, anywhere. They're different
+from a little yacht.  I'd love to travel."
+
+"Sure; so would I."
+
+"Papa and mamma came over in a sailing ship.  They were
+twenty-one days.  Mamma's uncle used to be a sailor. He was
+captain of a steamer on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland."
+
+"Halt!" shouted Mr. Sieppe, brandishing his rifle.  They had
+arrived at the gates of the park.  All at once McTeague
+turned cold.  He had only a quarter in his pocket.  What was
+he expected to do--pay for the whole party, or for Trina and
+himself, or merely buy his own ticket?  And even in this
+latter case would a quarter be enough?  He lost his wits,
+rolling his eyes helplessly. Then it occurred to him to
+feign a great abstraction, pretending not to know that the
+time was come to pay.  He looked intently up and down the
+tracks; perhaps a train was coming.  "Here we are," cried
+Trina, as they came up to the rest of the party, crowded
+about the entrance.  "Yes, yes," observed McTeague, his head
+in the air.
+
+"Gi' me four bits, Mac," said Marcus, coming up. "Here's
+where we shell out."
+
+"I--I--I only got a quarter," mumbled the dentist,
+miserably. He felt that he had ruined himself forever with
+Trina.  What was the use of trying to win her?  Destiny was
+against him.  "I only got a quarter," he stammered.  He was
+on the point of adding that he would not go in the park. 
+That seemed to be the only alternative.
+
+"Oh, all right!" said Marcus, easily.  "I'll pay for you,
+and you can square with me when we go home."
+
+They filed into the park, Mr. Sieppe counting them off
+as they entered.
+
+"Ah," said Trina, with a long breath, as she and McTeague
+pushed through the wicket, "here we are once more, Doctor."  
+She had not appeared to notice McTeague's embarrassment. 
+The difficulty had been tided over somehow.  Once more
+McTeague felt himself saved.
+
+"To der beach!" shouted Mr. Sieppe.  They had checked their
+baskets at the peanut stand.  The whole party trooped down
+to the seashore.  The greyhound was turned loose.  The
+children raced on ahead.
+
+From one of the larger parcels Mrs. Sieppe had drawn forth a
+small tin steamboat--August's birthday present--a gaudy
+little toy which could be steamed up and navigated by means
+of an alcohol lamp.  Her trial trip was to be made this
+morning.
+
+"Gi' me it, gi' me it," shouted August, dancing around his
+father.
+
+"Not soh, not soh," cried Mr. Sieppe, bearing it aloft. "I
+must first der eggsperimunt make."
+
+"No, no!" wailed August.  "I want to play with ut."
+
+"Obey!" thundered Mr. Sieppe.  August subsided.  A little
+jetty ran part of the way into the water.  Here, after a
+careful study of the directions printed on the cover of the
+box, Mr. Sieppe began to fire the little boat.
+
+"I want to put ut in the wa-ater," cried August.
+
+"Stand back!" shouted his parent.  "You do not know so well
+as me; dere is dandger.  Mitout attention he will
+eggsplode."
+
+"I want to play with ut," protested August, beginning to
+cry.
+
+"Ach, soh; you cry, bube!" vociferated Mr. Sieppe. "Mommer,"
+addressing Mrs. Sieppe, "he will soh soon be ge-whipt, eh?"
+
+"I want my boa-wut," screamed August, dancing.
+
+"Silence!" roared Mr. Sieppe.  The little boat began to hiss
+and smoke.
+
+"Soh," observed the father, "he gommence.  Attention!  I put
+him in der water."  He was very excited.  The perspiration
+dripped from the back of his neck.  The little boat was
+launched.  It hissed more furiously than ever.  Clouds
+of steam rolled from it, but it refused to move.
+
+"You don't know how she wo-rks," sobbed August.
+
+"I know more soh mudge as der grossest liddle fool as you,"
+cried Mr. Sieppe, fiercely, his face purple.
+
+"You must give it sh--shove!" exclaimed the boy.
+
+"Den he eggsplode, idiot!" shouted his father.  All at once
+the boiler of the steamer blew up with a sharp crack.  The
+little tin toy turned over and sank out of sight before any
+one could interfere.
+
+"Ah--h!  Yah!  Yah!" yelled August.  "It's go-one!"
+
+Instantly Mr. Sieppe boxed his ears.  There was a lamentable
+scene.  August rent the air with his outcries; his father
+shook him till his boots danced on the jetty, shouting into
+his face:
+
+"Ach, idiot!  Ach, imbecile!  Ach, miserable!  I tol' you he
+eggsplode.  Stop your cry.  Stop!  It is an order.  Do you
+wish I drow you in der water, eh?  Speak.  Silence, bube!  
+Mommer, where ist mein stick?  He will der grossest whippun
+ever of his life receive."
+
+Little by little the boy subsided, swallowing his sobs,
+knuckling his eyes, gazing ruefully at the spot where the
+boat had sunk.  "Dot is better soh," commented Mr. Sieppe,
+finally releasing him.  "Next dime berhaps you will your
+fat'er better pelief.  Now, no more.  We will der glams ge-
+dig, Mommer, a fire.  Ach, himmel! we have der pfeffer
+forgotten."
+
+The work of clam digging began at once, the little boys
+taking off their shoes and stockings.  At first August
+refused to be comforted, and it was not until his father
+drove him into the water with his gold-headed cane that he
+consented to join the others.
+
+What a day that was for McTeague!  What a never-to-be-
+forgotten day!  He was with Trina constantly.  They laughed
+together--she demurely, her lips closed tight, her little
+chin thrust out, her small pale nose, with its adorable
+little freckles, wrinkling; he roared with all the force of
+his lungs, his enormous mouth distended, striking sledge-
+hammer blows upon his knee with his clenched fist.
+
+The lunch was delicious.  Trina and her mother made a
+clam chowder that melted in one's mouth.  The lunch baskets
+were emptied.  The party were fully two hours eating.  There
+were huge loaves of rye bread full of grains of chickweed. 
+There were weiner-wurst and frankfurter sausages.  There was
+unsalted butter. There were pretzels.  There was cold
+underdone chicken, which one ate in slices, plastered with a
+wonderful kind of mustard that did not sting.  There were
+dried apples, that gave Mr. Sieppe the hiccoughs.  There
+were a dozen bottles of beer, and, last of all, a crowning
+achievement, a marvellous Gotha truffle.  After lunch came
+tobacco.  Stuffed to the eyes, McTeague drowsed over his
+pipe, prone on his back in the sun, while Trina, Mrs.
+Sieppe, and Selina washed the dishes.  In the afternoon Mr.
+Sieppe disappeared. They heard the reports of his rifle on
+the range.  The others swarmed over the park, now around the
+swings, now in the Casino, now in the museum, now invading
+the merry-go-round.
+
+At half-past five o'clock Mr. Sieppe marshalled the party 
+together.  It was time to return home.
+
+The family insisted that Marcus and McTeague should take
+supper with them at their home and should stay over night. 
+Mrs. Sieppe argued they could get no decent supper if they
+went back to the city at that hour; that they could catch an
+early morning boat and reach their business in good time. 
+The two friends accepted.
+
+The Sieppes lived in a little box of a house at the foot of
+B Street, the first house to the right as one went up from
+the station.  It was two stories high, with a funny red
+mansard roof of oval slates.  The interior was cut up into
+innumerable tiny rooms, some of them so small as to be
+hardly better than sleeping closets.  In the back yard was a
+contrivance for pumping water from the cistern that
+interested McTeague at once.  It was a dog-wheel, a huge
+revolving box in which the unhappy black greyhound spent
+most of his waking hours.  It was his kennel; he slept in
+it.  From time to time during the day Mrs. Sieppe appeared
+on the back doorstep, crying shrilly, "Hoop, hoop!" She
+threw lumps of coal at him, waking him to his work.
+
+They were all very tired, and went to bed early.  After
+great discussion it was decided that Marcus would sleep upon
+the lounge in the front parlor.  Trina would sleep with
+August, giving up her room to McTeague.  Selina went to her
+home, a block or so above the Sieppes's.  At nine o'clock
+Mr. Sieppe showed McTeague to his room and left him to
+himself with a newly lighted candle.
+
+For a long time after Mr. Sieppe had gone McTeague stood
+motionless in the middle of the room, his elbows pressed
+close to his sides, looking obliquely from the corners of
+his eyes. He hardly dared to move.  He was in Trina's room.
+
+It was an ordinary little room.  A clean white matting was
+on the floor; gray paper, spotted with pink and green
+flowers, covered the walls.  In one corner, under a white
+netting, was a little bed, the woodwork gayly painted with
+knots of bright flowers.  Near it, against the wall, was a
+black walnut bureau. A work-table with spiral legs stood by
+the window, which was hung with a green and gold window
+curtain.  Opposite the window the closet door stood ajar,
+while in the corner across from the bed was a tiny washstand
+with two clean towels.
+
+And that was all.  But it was Trina's room.  McTeague was in
+his lady's bower; it seemed to him a little nest, intimate,
+discreet.  He felt hideously out of place.  He was an
+intruder; he, with his enormous feet, his colossal bones,
+his crude, brutal gestures.  The mere weight of his limbs,
+he was sure, would crush the little bed-stead like an
+eggshell.
+
+Then, as this first sensation wore off, he began to feel the
+charm of the little chamber.  It was as though Trina were
+close by, but invisible.  McTeague felt all the delight of
+her presence without the embarrassment that usually
+accompanied it. He was near to her--nearer than he had ever
+been before.  He saw into her daily life, her little ways
+and manners, her habits, her very thoughts.  And was there
+not in the air of that room a certain faint perfume that he
+knew, that recalled her to his mind with marvellous
+vividness?
+
+As he put the candle down upon the bureau he saw her hair-
+brush lying there.  Instantly he picked it up, and, without
+knowing why, held it to his face.  With what a delicious
+odor was it redolent!  That heavy, enervating odor of her
+hair--her wonderful, royal hair!  The smell of that little
+hairbrush was talismanic.  He had but to close his eyes to
+see her as distinctly as in a mirror.  He saw her tiny,
+round figure, dressed all in black--for, curiously enough,
+it was his very first impression of Trina that came back to
+him now--not the Trina of the later occasions, not the Trina
+of the blue cloth skirt and white sailor.  He saw her as he
+had seen her the day that Marcus had introduced them: saw
+her pale, round face; her narrow, half-open eyes, blue like
+the eyes of a baby; her tiny, pale ears, suggestive of
+anaemia; the freckles across the bridge of her nose; her
+pale lips; the tiara of royal black hair; and, above all,
+the delicious poise of the head, tipped back as though by
+the weight of all that hair--the poise that thrust out her
+chin a little, with the movement that was so confiding, so
+innocent, so nearly infantile.
+
+McTeague went softly about the room from one object to
+another, beholding Trina in everything he touched or looked
+at.  He came at last to the closet door.  It was ajar.  He
+opened it wide, and paused upon the threshold.
+
+Trina's clothes were hanging there--skirts and waists,
+jackets, and stiff white petticoats.  What a vision!  For an
+instant McTeague caught his breath, spellbound.  If he had
+suddenly discovered Trina herself there, smiling at him,
+holding out her hands, he could hardly have been more
+overcome.  Instantly he recognized the black dress she had
+worn on that famous first day. There it was, the little
+jacket she had carried over her arm the day he had terrified
+her with his blundering declaration, and still others, and
+others--a whole group of Trinas faced him there.  He went
+farther into the closet, touching the clothes gingerly,
+stroking them softly with his huge leathern palms.  As he
+stirred them a delicate perfume disengaged itself from the
+folds.  Ah, that exquisite feminine odor!  It was not only
+her hair now, it was Trina herself--her mouth, her hands,
+her neck; the indescribably sweet, fleshly aroma that was a
+part of her, pure and clean, and redolent of youth and
+freshness.  All at once, seized with an unreasoned impulse,
+McTeague opened his huge arms and gathered the little
+garments close to him, plunging his face deep amongst them,
+savoring their delicious odor with long breaths of luxury
+and supreme content.
+
+*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The picnic at Schuetzen Park decided matters.  McTeague
+began to call on Trina regularly Sunday and Wednesday
+afternoons.  He took Marcus Schouler's place.  Sometimes
+Marcus accompanied him, but it was generally to meet Selina
+by appointment at the Sieppes's house.
+
+But Marcus made the most of his renunciation of his cousin. 
+He remembered his pose from time to time.  He made McTeague
+unhappy and bewildered by wringing his hand, by venting
+sighs that seemed to tear his heart out, or by giving
+evidences of an infinite melancholy. "What is my life!" he
+would exclaim.  "What is left for me?  Nothing, by damn!" 
+And when McTeague would attempt remonstrance, he would cry:
+"Never mind, old man.  Never mind me.  Go, be happy.  I
+forgive you."
+
+Forgive what?  McTeague was all at sea, was harassed with
+the thought of some shadowy, irreparable injury he had done
+his friend.
+
+"Oh, don't think of me!" Marcus would exclaim at other
+times, even when Trina was by.  "Don't think of me; I don't
+count any more.  I ain't in it."  Marcus seemed to take
+great pleasure in contemplating the wreck of his life. 
+There is no doubt he enjoyed himself hugely during these
+days.
+
+The Sieppes were at first puzzled as well over this change
+of front.
+
+"Trina has den a new younge man," cried Mr. Sieppe. "First
+Schouler, now der doktor, eh?  What die tevil, I say!"
+
+Weeks passed, February went, March came in very rainy,
+putting a stop to all their picnics and Sunday excursions.
+
+One Wednesday afternoon in the second week in March
+McTeague came over to call on Trina, bringing his
+concertina with him, as was his custom nowadays.  As he got
+off the train at the station he was surprised to find Trina
+waiting for him.
+
+"This is the first day it hasn't rained in weeks," she
+explained, "an' I thought it would be nice to walk."
+
+"Sure, sure," assented McTeague.
+
+B Street station was nothing more than a little shed.  There
+was no ticket office, nothing but a couple of whittled and
+carven benches.  It was built close to the railroad tracks,
+just across which was the dirty, muddy shore of San
+Francisco Bay.  About a quarter of a mile back from the
+station was the edge of the town of Oakland.  Between the
+station and the first houses of the town lay immense salt
+flats, here and there broken by winding streams of black
+water.  They were covered with a growth of wiry grass,
+strangely discolored in places by enormous stains of orange
+yellow.
+
+Near the station a bit of fence painted with a cigar
+advertisement reeled over into the mud, while under its lee
+lay an abandoned gravel wagon with dished wheels.  The
+station was connected with the town by the extension of B
+Street, which struck across the flats geometrically
+straight, a file of tall poles with intervening wires
+marching along with it.  At the station these were headed by
+an iron electric-light pole that, with its supports and
+outriggers, looked for all the world like an immense
+grasshopper on its hind legs.
+
+Across the flats, at the fringe of the town, were the dump
+heaps, the figures of a few Chinese rag-pickers moving over
+them.  Far to the left the view was shut off by the immense
+red-brown drum of the gas-works; to the right it was bounded
+by the chimneys and workshops of an iron foundry.
+
+Across the railroad tracks, to seaward, one saw the long
+stretch of black mud bank left bare by the tide, which was
+far out, nearly half a mile.  Clouds of sea-gulls were
+forever rising and settling upon this mud bank; a wrecked
+and abandoned wharf crawled over it on tottering legs; close
+in an old sailboat lay canted on her bilge.
+
+But farther on, across the yellow waters of the bay,
+beyond Goat Island, lay San Francisco, a blue line of hills,
+rugged with roofs and spires.  Far to the westward opened
+the Golden Gate, a bleak cutting in the sand-hills, through
+which one caught a glimpse of the open Pacific.
+
+The station at B Street was solitary; no trains passed at
+this hour; except the distant rag-pickers, not a soul was in
+sight. The wind blew strong, carrying with it the mingled
+smell of salt, of tar, of dead seaweed, and of bilge.  The
+sky hung low and brown; at long intervals a few drops of
+rain fell.
+
+Near the station Trina and McTeague sat on the roadbed of
+the tracks, at the edge of the mud bank, making the most out
+of the landscape, enjoying the open air, the salt marshes,
+and the sight of the distant water.  From time to time
+McTeague played his six mournful airs upon his concertina.
+
+After a while they began walking up and down the tracks,
+McTeague talking about his profession, Trina listening, very
+interested and absorbed, trying to understand.
+
+"For pulling the roots of the upper molars we use the cow-
+horn forceps," continued the dentist, monotonously.  "We get
+the inside beak over the palatal roots and the cow-horn beak
+over the buccal roots--that's the roots on the outside, you
+see. Then we close the forceps, and that breaks right
+through the alveolus--that's the part of the socket in the
+jaw, you understand."
+
+At another moment he told her of his one unsatisfied desire.
+"Some day I'm going to have a big gilded tooth outside my
+window for a sign.  Those big gold teeth are beautiful,
+beautiful--only they cost so much, I can't afford one just
+now."
+
+"Oh, it's raining," suddenly exclaimed Trina, holding out
+her palm.  They turned back and reached the station in a
+drizzle. The afternoon was closing in dark and rainy.  The
+tide was coming back, talking and lapping for miles along
+the mud bank. Far off across the flats, at the edge of the
+town, an electric car went by, stringing out a long row of
+diamond sparks on the overhead wires.
+
+"Say, Miss Trina," said McTeague, after a while, "what's the
+good of waiting any longer?  Why can't us two get married?"
+
+Trina still shook her head, saying "No" instinctively,
+in spite of herself.
+
+"Why not?" persisted McTeague.  "Don't you like me well
+enough?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then why not?"
+
+"Because."
+
+"Ah, come on," he said, but Trina still shook her head.
+
+"Ah, come on," urged McTeague.  He could think of nothing
+else to say, repeating the same phrase over and over again
+to all her refusals.
+
+"Ah, come on!  Ah, come on!"
+
+Suddenly he took her in his enormous arms, crushing down her
+struggle with his immense strength.  Then Trina gave up, all
+in an instant, turning her head to his.  They kissed each
+other, grossly, full in the mouth.
+
+A roar and a jarring of the earth suddenly grew near and
+passed them in a reek of steam and hot air.  It was the
+Overland, with its flaming headlight, on its way across the
+continent.
+
+The passage of the train startled them both.  Trina
+struggled to free herself from McTeague.  "Oh, please!
+please!" she pleaded, on the point of tears.  McTeague
+released her, but in that moment a slight, a barely
+perceptible, revulsion of feeling had taken place in him. 
+The instant that Trina gave up, the instant she allowed him
+to kiss her, he thought less of her.  She was not so
+desirable, after all.  But this reaction was so faint, so
+subtle, so intangible, that in another moment he had doubted
+its occurrence.  Yet afterward it returned.  Was there not
+something gone from Trina now?  Was he not disappointed in
+her for doing that very thing for which he had longed?  Was
+Trina the submissive, the compliant, the attainable just the
+same, just as delicate and adorable as Trina the
+inaccessible?  Perhaps he dimly saw that this must be so,
+that it belonged to the changeless order of things--the man
+desiring the woman only for what she withholds; the woman
+worshipping the man for that which she yields up to him. 
+With each concession gained the man's desire cools; with
+every surrender made the woman's adoration increases.  But
+why should it be so?
+
+Trina wrenched herself free and drew back from McTeague, her
+little chin quivering; her face, even to the lobes of her
+pale ears, flushed scarlet; her narrow blue eyes brimming. 
+Suddenly she put her head between her hands and began to
+sob.
+
+"Say, say, Miss Trina, listen--listen here, Miss Trina,"
+cried McTeague, coming forward a step.
+
+"Oh, don't!" she gasped, shrinking.  "I must go home," she
+cried, springing to her feet.  "It's late.  I must.  I must.
+Don't come with me, please.  Oh, I'm so--so,"--she could not
+find any words.  "Let me go alone," she went on.  "You may--
+you come Sunday.  Good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said McTeague, his head in a whirl at this
+sudden, unaccountable change.  "Can't I kiss you again?" 
+But Trina was firm now.  When it came to his pleading--a
+mere matter of words--she was strong enough.
+
+"No, no, you must not!" she exclaimed, with energy.  She was
+gone in another instant.  The dentist, stunned, bewildered,
+gazed stupidly after her as she ran up the extension of B
+Street through the rain.
+
+But suddenly a great joy took possession of him.  He had won
+her.  Trina was to be for him, after all.  An enormous smile
+distended his thick lips; his eyes grew wide, and flashed;
+and he drew his breath quickly, striking his mallet-like
+fist upon his knee, and exclaiming under his breath:
+
+"I got her, by God!  I got her, by God!"  At the same time
+he thought better of himself; his self-respect increased
+enormously.  The man that could win Trina Sieppe was a man
+of extraordinary ability.
+
+Trina burst in upon her mother while the latter was setting
+a mousetrap in the kitchen.
+
+"Oh, mamma!"
+
+"Eh? Trina? Ach, what has happun?"
+
+Trina told her in a breath.
+
+"Soh soon?" was Mrs. Sieppe's first comment.  "Eh, well,
+what you cry for, then?"
+
+"I don't know," wailed Trina, plucking at the end of her
+handkerchief.
+
+"You loaf der younge doktor?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, what for you kiss him?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don' know, you don' know?  Where haf your sensus gone,
+Trina?  You kiss der doktor.  You cry, and you don' know. 
+Is ut Marcus den?"
+
+"No, it's not Cousin Mark."
+
+"Den ut must be der doktor."
+
+Trina made no answer.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I--I guess so."
+
+"You loaf him?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Mrs. Sieppe set down the mousetrap with such violence that
+it sprung with a sharp snap.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+
+No, Trina did not know.  "Do I love him?  Do I love him?"  A
+thousand times she put the question to herself during the
+next two or three days.  At night she hardly slept, but lay
+broad awake for hours in her little, gayly painted bed, with
+its white netting, torturing herself with doubts and
+questions.  At times she remembered the scene in the
+station with a veritable agony of shame, and at other times
+she was ashamed to recall it with a thrill of joy.  Nothing
+could have been more sudden, more unexpected, than that
+surrender of herself.  For over a year she had thought that
+Marcus would some day be her husband.  They would be
+married, she supposed, some time in the future, she did not
+know exactly when; the matter did not take definite shape in
+her mind.  She liked Cousin Mark very well.  And then
+suddenly this cross-current had set in; this blond giant had
+appeared, this huge, stolid fellow, with his immense, crude
+strength.  She had not loved him at first, that was certain. 
+The day he had spoken to her in his "Parlors" she had only
+been terrified.  If he had confined himself to merely
+speaking, as did Marcus, to pleading with her, to wooing her
+at a distance, forestalling her wishes, showing her little
+attentions, sending her boxes of candy, she could have
+easily withstood him.  But he had only to take her in his
+arms, to crush down her struggle with his enormous strength,
+to subdue her, conquer her by sheer brute force, and she
+gave up in an instant.
+
+But why--why had she done so?  Why did she feel the desire,
+the necessity of being conquered by a superior strength? 
+Why did it please her?  Why had it suddenly thrilled her
+from head to foot with a quick, terrifying gust of passion,
+the like of which she had never known?  Never at his best
+had Marcus made her feel like that, and yet she had always
+thought she cared for Cousin Mark more than for any one
+else.
+
+When McTeague had all at once caught her in his huge arms,
+something had leaped to life in her--something that had
+hitherto lain dormant, something strong and overpowering. 
+It frightened her now as she thought of it, this second self
+that had wakened within her, and that shouted and clamored
+for recognition.  And yet, was it to be feared?  Was it
+something to be ashamed of? Was it not, after all, natural,
+clean, spontaneous?  Trina knew that she was a pure girl;
+knew that this sudden commotion within her carried with it
+no suggestion of vice.
+
+Dimly, as figures seen in a waking dream, these ideas
+floated through Trina's mind.  It was quite beyond her
+to realize them clearly; she could not know what they meant. 
+Until that rainy day by the shore of the bay Trina had lived
+her life with as little self-consciousness as a tree.  She
+was frank, straightforward, a healthy, natural human being,
+without sex as yet.  She was almost like a boy.  At once
+there had been a mysterious disturbance.  The woman within
+her suddenly awoke.
+
+Did she love McTeague?  Difficult question.  Did she choose
+him for better or for worse, deliberately, of her own free
+will, or was Trina herself allowed even a choice in the
+taking of that step that was to make or mar her life?  The
+Woman is awakened, and, starting from her sleep, catches
+blindly at what first her newly opened eyes light upon.  It
+is a spell, a witchery, ruled by chance alone, inexplicable
+--a fairy queen enamored of a clown with ass's ears.
+
+McTeague had awakened the Woman, and, whether she would or
+no, she was his now irrevocably; struggle against it as she
+would, she belonged to him, body and soul, for life or for
+death.  She had not sought it, she had not desired it.  The
+spell was laid upon her.  Was it a blessing?  Was it a
+curse?  It was all one; she was his, indissolubly, for evil
+or for good.
+
+And he?  The very act of submission that bound the woman to
+him forever had made her seem less desirable in his eyes. 
+Their undoing had already begun.  Yet neither of them was to
+blame. From the first they had not sought each other. 
+Chance had brought them face to face, and mysterious
+instincts as ungovernable as the winds of heaven were at
+work knitting their lives together.  Neither of them had
+asked that this thing should be--that their destinies, their
+very souls, should be the sport of chance.  If they could
+have known, they would have shunned the fearful risk.  But
+they were allowed no voice in the matter.  Why should it all
+be?
+
+It had been on a Wednesday that the scene in the B Street
+station had taken place.  Throughout the rest of the week,
+at every hour of the day, Trina asked herself the same
+question: "Do I love him?  Do I really love him?  Is this
+what love is like?"  As she recalled McTeague--recalled
+his huge, square-cut head, his salient jaw, his shock of
+yellow hair, his heavy, lumbering body, his slow wits--she
+found little to admire in him beyond his physical strength,
+and at such moments she shook her head decisively.  "No,
+surely she did not love him."  Sunday afternoon, however,
+McTeague called.  Trina had prepared a little speech for
+him.  She was to tell him that she did not know what had
+been the matter with her that Wednesday afternoon; that she
+had acted like a bad girl; that she did not love him well
+enough to marry him; that she had told him as much once
+before.
+
+McTeague saw her alone in the little front parlor.  The
+instant she appeared he came straight towards her.  She saw
+what he was bent upon doing.  "Wait a minute," she cried,
+putting out her hands.  "Wait.  You don't understand.  I
+have got something to say to you."  She might as well have
+talked to the wind. McTeague put aside her hands with a
+single gesture, and gripped her to him in a bearlike embrace
+that all but smothered her. Trina was but a reed before that
+giant strength. McTeague turned her face to his and kissed
+her again upon the mouth.  Where was all Trina's resolve
+then?  Where was her carefully prepared little speech? 
+Where was all her hesitation and torturing doubts of the
+last few days?  She clasped McTeague's huge red neck with
+both her slender arms; she raised her adorable little chin
+and kissed him in return, exclaiming: "Oh, I do love you!  I
+do love you!" Never afterward were the two so happy as at
+that moment.
+
+A little later in that same week, when Marcus and McTeague
+were taking lunch at the car conductors' coffee-joint, the
+former suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"Say, Mac, now that you've got Trina, you ought to do more
+for her.  By damn! you ought to, for a fact.  Why don't you
+take her out somewhere--to the theatre, or somewhere?  You
+ain't on to your job."
+
+Naturally, McTeague had told Marcus of his success with
+Trina. Marcus had taken on a grand air.
+
+"You've got her, have you? Well, I'm glad of it, old man.  I
+am, for a fact.  I know you'll be happy with her.  I
+know how I would have been.  I forgive you; yes, I forgive
+you, freely."
+
+McTeague had not thought of taking Trina to the theatre.
+
+"You think I ought to, Mark?" he inquired, hesitating.
+Marcus answered, with his mouth full of suet pudding:
+
+"Why, of course.  That's the proper caper."
+
+"Well--well, that's so.  The theatre--that's the word."
+
+"Take her to the variety show at the Orpheum.  There's a
+good show there this week; you'll have to take Mrs. Sieppe,
+too, of course," he added.  Marcus was not sure of himself
+as regarded certain proprieties, nor, for that matter, were
+any of the people of the little world of Polk Street.  The
+shop girls, the plumbers' apprentices, the small
+tradespeople, and their like, whose social position was not
+clearly defined, could never be sure how far they could go
+and yet preserve their "respectability."  When they wished
+to be "proper," they invariably overdid the thing.  It was
+not as if they belonged to the "tough" element, who had no
+appearances to keep up.  Polk Street rubbed elbows with the
+"avenue" one block above.  There were certain limits which
+its dwellers could not overstep; but unfortunately for them,
+these limits were poorly defined.  They could never be sure
+of themselves.  At an unguarded moment they might be taken
+for "toughs," so they generally erred in the other
+direction, and were absurdly formal.  No people have a
+keener eye for the amenities than those whose social
+position is not assured.
+
+"Oh, sure, you'll have to take her mother," insisted Marcus.
+"It wouldn't be the proper racket if you didn't."
+
+McTeague undertook the affair.  It was an ordeal.  Never in
+his life had he been so perturbed, so horribly anxious.  He
+called upon Trina the following Wednesday and made
+arrangements.  Mrs. Sieppe asked if little August might be
+included.  It would console him for the loss of his
+steamboat.
+
+"Sure, sure," said McTeague.  "August too--everybody," he
+added, vaguely.
+
+"We always have to leave so early," complained Trina, "in
+order to catch the last boat.  Just when it's becoming
+interesting."
+
+At this McTeague, acting upon a suggestion of Marcus
+Schouler's, insisted they should stay at the flat over
+night.  Marcus and the dentist would give up their rooms to
+them and sleep at the dog hospital.  There was a bed there
+in the sick ward that old Grannis sometimes occupied when a
+bad case needed watching.  All at once McTeague had an idea,
+a veritable inspiration.
+
+"And we'll--we'll--we'll have--what's the matter with having
+something to eat afterward in my "Parlors?"
+
+"Vairy goot," commented Mrs. Sieppe.  "Bier, eh? And some
+damales."
+
+"Oh, I love tamales!" exclaimed Trina, clasping her
+hands.
+
+McTeague returned to the city, rehearsing his instructions
+over and over.  The theatre party began to assume tremendous
+proportions.  First of all, he was to get the seats, the
+third or fourth row from the front, on the left-hand side,
+so as to be out of the hearing of the drums in the
+orchestra; he must make arrangements about the rooms with
+Marcus, must get in the beer, but not the tamales; must buy
+for himself a white lawn tie--so Marcus directed; must look
+to it that Maria Macapa put his room in perfect order; and,
+finally, must meet the Sieppes at the ferry slip at half-
+past seven the following Monday night.
+
+The real labor of the affair began with the buying of the
+tickets.  At the theatre McTeague got into wrong entrances;
+was sent from one wicket to another; was bewildered,
+confused; misunderstood directions; was at one moment
+suddenly convinced that he had not enough money with him,
+and started to return home.  Finally he found himself at the
+box-office wicket.
+
+"Is it here you buy your seats?"
+
+"How many?"
+
+"Is it here--"
+
+"What night do you want 'em?  Yes, sir, here's the place."
+
+McTeague gravely delivered himself of the formula he had
+been reciting for the last dozen hours.
+
+"I want four seats for Monday night in the fourth row from
+the front, and on the right-hand side."
+
+"Right hand as you face the house or as you face the
+stage?" McTeague was dumfounded.
+
+"I want to be on the right-hand side," he insisted,
+stolidly; adding, "in order to be away from the drums."
+
+"Well, the drums are on the right of the orchestra as you
+face the stage," shouted the other impatiently; "you want to
+the left, then, as you face the house."
+
+"I want to be on the right-hand side," persisted the
+dentist.
+
+Without a word the seller threw out four tickets with a
+magnificent, supercilious gesture.
+
+"There's four seats on the right-hand side, then, and you're
+right up against the drums."
+
+"But I don't want to be near the drums," protested McTeague,
+beginning to perspire.
+
+"Do you know what you want at all?" said the ticket seller
+with calmness, thrusting his head at McTeague. The dentist
+knew that he had hurt this young man's feelings.
+
+"I want--I want," he stammered.  The seller slammed down a
+plan of the house in front of him and began to explain
+excitedly.  It was the one thing lacking to complete
+McTeague's confusion.
+
+"There are your seats," finished the seller, shoving the
+tickets into McTeague's hands.  "They are the fourth row
+from the front, and away from the drums. Now are you
+satisfied?"
+
+"Are they on the right-hand side?  I want on the right--no,
+I want on the left.  I want--I don' know, I don' know."
+
+The seller roared.  McTeague moved slowly away, gazing
+stupidly at the blue slips of pasteboard.  Two girls took
+his place at the wicket.  In another moment McTeague came
+back, peering over the girls' shoulders and calling to the
+seller:
+
+"Are these for Monday night?"
+
+The other disdained reply.  McTeague retreated again
+timidly, thrusting the tickets into his immense wallet.  For
+a moment he stood thoughtful on the steps of the entrance. 
+Then all at once he became enraged, he did not know exactly
+why; somehow he felt himself slighted. Once more he came
+back to the wicket.
+
+"You can't make small of me," he shouted over the girls'
+shoulders; "you--you can't make small of me.  I'll thump you
+in the head, you little--you little--you little--little--
+little pup."  The ticket seller shrugged his shoulders
+wearily.  "A dollar and a half," he said to the two girls.
+
+McTeague glared at him and breathed loudly.  Finally he
+decided to let the matter drop.  He moved away, but on the
+steps was once more seized with a sense of injury and
+outraged dignity.
+
+"You can't make small of me," he called back a last time,
+wagging his head and shaking his fist.  "I will--I will--I
+will--yes, I will."  He went off muttering.
+
+At last Monday night came.  McTeague met the Sieppes at the
+ferry, dressed in a black Prince Albert coat and his best
+slate-blue trousers, and wearing the made-up lawn necktie
+that Marcus had selected for him.  Trina was very pretty in
+the black dress that McTeague knew so well.  She wore a pair
+of new gloves.  Mrs.  Sieppe had on lisle-thread mits, and
+carried two bananas and an orange in a net reticule.  "For
+Owgooste," she confided to him.  Owgooste was in a
+Fauntleroy "costume" very much too small for him.  Already
+he had been crying.
+
+"Woult you pelief, Doktor, dot bube has torn his stockun
+alreatty?  Walk in der front, you; stop cryun. Where is dot
+berliceman?"
+
+At the door of the theatre McTeague was suddenly seized with
+a panic terror.  He had lost the tickets.  He tore through
+his pockets, ransacked his wallet.  They were nowhere to be
+found. All at once he remembered, and with a gasp of relief
+removed his hat and took them out from beneath the
+sweatband.
+
+The party entered and took their places.  It was absurdly
+early. The lights were all darkened, the ushers stood under
+the galleries in groups, the empty auditorium echoing with
+their noisy talk.  Occasionally a waiter with his tray and
+clean white apron sauntered up and doun the aisle.  Directly
+in front of them was the great iron curtain of the stage,
+painted with all manner of advertisements.  From behind this
+came a noise of hammering and of occasional loud voices.
+
+While waiting they studied their programmes.  First was
+an overture by the orchestra, after which came "The
+Gleasons, in their mirth-moving musical farce, entitled
+'McMonnigal's Court-ship.'" This was to be followed by "The
+Lamont Sisters, Winnie and Violet, serio-comiques and skirt
+dancers."  And after this came a great array of other
+"artists" and "specialty performers," musical wonders,
+acrobats, lightning artists, ventriloquists, and last of
+all, "The feature of the evening, the crowning scientific
+achievement of the nineteenth century, the kinetoscope."  
+McTeague was excited, dazzled.  In five years he had not
+been twice to the theatre.  Now he beheld himself inviting
+his "girl" and her mother to accompany him.  He began to
+feel that he was a man of the world.  He ordered a cigar.
+
+Meanwhile the house was filling up.  A few side brackets
+were turned on.  The ushers ran up and down the aisles,
+stubs of tickets between their thumb and finger, and from
+every part of the auditorium could be heard the sharp clap-
+clapping of the seats as the ushers flipped them down.  A
+buzz of talk arose. In the gallery a street gamin whistled
+shrilly, and called to some friends on the other side of the
+house.
+
+"Are they go-wun to begin pretty soon, ma?" whined Owgooste
+for the fifth or sixth time; adding, "Say, ma, can't I have
+some candy?"  A cadaverous little boy had appeared in their
+aisle, chanting, "Candies, French mixed candies, popcorn,
+peanuts and candy."  The orchestra entered, each man
+crawling out from an opening under the stage, hardly larger
+than the gate of a rabbit hutch.  At every instant now the
+crowd increased; there were but few seats that were not
+taken.  The waiters hurried up and down the aisles, their
+trays laden with beer glasses.  A smell of cigar-smoke
+filled the air, and soon a faint blue haze rose from all
+corners of the house.
+
+"Ma, when are they go-wun to begin?" cried Owgooste.  As he
+spoke the iron advertisement curtain rose, disclosing the
+curtain proper underneath.  This latter curtain was quite an
+affair.  Upon it was painted a wonderful picture.  A flight
+of marble steps led down to a stream of water; two white
+swans, their necks arched like the capital letter S,
+floated about.  At the head of the marble steps were two
+vases filled with red and yellow flowers, while at the foot
+was moored a gondola.  This gondola was full of red velvet
+rugs that hung over the side and trailed in the water.  In
+the prow of the gondola a young man in vermilion tights held
+a mandolin in his left hand, and gave his right to a girl in
+white satin.  A King Charles spaniel, dragging a leading-
+string in the shape of a huge pink sash, followed the girl. 
+Seven scarlet roses were scattered upon the two lowest
+steps, and eight floated in the water.
+
+"Ain't that pretty, Mac?" exclaimed Trina, turning to the
+dentist.
+
+"Ma, ain't they go-wun to begin now-wow?" whined Owgooste.
+Suddenly the lights all over the house blazed up.  "Ah!"
+said everybody all at once.
+
+"Ain't ut crowdut?" murmured Mr. Sieppe.  Every seat was
+taken; many were even standing up.
+
+"I always like it better when there is a crowd," said Trina.
+She was in great spirits that evening.  Her round, pale face
+was positively pink.
+
+The orchestra banged away at the overture, suddenly
+finishing with a great flourish of violins.  A short pause
+followed.  Then the orchestra played a quick-step strain,
+and the curtain rose on an interior furnished with two red
+chairs and a green sofa. A girl in a short blue dress and
+black stockings entered in a hurry and began to dust the two
+chairs.  She was in a great temper, talking very fast,
+disclaiming against the "new lodger."  It appeared that this
+latter never paid his rent; that he was given to late hours. 
+Then she came down to the footlights and began to sing in a
+tremendous voice, hoarse and flat, almost like a man's.  The
+chorus, of a feeble originality, ran:
+
+
+     "Oh, how happy I will be,
+      When my darling's face I'll see;
+      Oh, tell him for to meet me in the moonlight,
+      Down where the golden lilies bloom."
+
+
+The orchestra played the tune of this chorus a second
+time, with certain variations, while the girl danced to it. 
+She sidled to one side of the stage and kicked, then sidled
+to the other and kicked again.  As she finished with the
+song, a man, evidently the lodger in question, came in. 
+Instantly McTeague exploded in a roar of laughter.  The man
+was intoxicated, his hat was knocked in, one end of his
+collar was unfastened and stuck up into his face, his watch-
+chain dangled from his pocket, and a yellow satin slipper
+was tied to a button-hole of his vest; his nose was
+vermilion, one eye was black and blue.  After a short
+dialogue with the girl, a third actor appeared.  He was
+dressed like a little boy, the girl's younger brother.  He
+wore an immense turned-down collar, and was continually
+doing hand-springs and wonderful back somersaults.  The
+"act" devolved upon these three people; the lodger making
+love to the girl in the short blue dress, the boy playing
+all manner of tricks upon him, giving him tremendous digs in
+the ribs or slaps upon the back that made him cough, pulling
+chairs from under him, running on all fours between his legs
+and upsetting him, knocking him over at inopportune moments. 
+Every one of his falls was accentuated by a bang upon the
+bass drum.  The whole humor of the "act" seemed to consist
+in the tripping up of the intoxicated lodger.
+
+This horse-play delighted McTeague beyond measure.  He
+roared and shouted every time the lodger went down, slapping
+his knee, wagging his head.  Owgooste crowed shrilly,
+clapping his hands and continually asking, "What did he say,
+ma?  What did he say?" Mrs. Sieppe laughed immoderately, her
+huge fat body shaking like a mountain of jelly.  She
+exclaimed from time to time, "Ach, Gott, dot fool!" Even
+Trina was moved, laughing demurely, her lips closed, putting
+one hand with its new glove to her mouth.
+
+The performance went on.  Now it was the "musical marvels,"
+two men extravagantly made up as negro minstrels, with
+immense shoes and plaid vests.  They seemed to be able to
+wrestle a tune out of almost anything--glass bottles, cigar-
+box fiddles, strings of sleigh-bells, even graduated brass
+tubes, which they rubbed with resined fingers.  McTeague
+was stupefied with admiration .
+
+"That's what you call musicians," he announced gravely. 
+"Home, Sweet Home," played upon a trombone.  Think of that!  
+Art could go no farther.
+
+The acrobats left him breathless.  They were dazzling young
+men with beautifully parted hair, continually making
+graceful gestures to the audience.  In one of them the
+dentist fancied he saw a strong resemblance to the boy who
+had tormented the intoxicated lodger and who had turned such
+marvellous somersaults.  Trina could not bear to watch their
+antics.  She turned away her head with a little shudder. 
+"It always makes me sick," she explained.
+
+The beautiful young lady, "The Society Contralto," in
+evening dress, who sang the sentimental songs, and carried
+the sheets of music at which she never looked, pleased
+McTeague less.  Trina, however, was captivated. She grew
+pensive over
+
+
+     "You do not love me--no;
+      Bid me good-by and go;"
+
+
+and split her new gloves in her enthusiasm when it was
+finished.
+
+"Don't you love sad music, Mac?" she murmured.
+
+Then came the two comedians.  They talked with fearful
+rapidity; their wit and repartee seemed inexhaustible.
+
+"As I was going down the street yesterday--"
+
+"Ah!  as YOU were going down the street--all right."
+
+"I saw a girl at a window----"
+
+"YOU saw a girl at a window."
+
+"And this girl she was a corker----"
+
+"Ah!  as YOU were going down the street yesterday YOU
+saw a girl at a window, and this girl she was a corker. All
+right, go on."
+
+The other comedian went on.  The joke was suddenly evolved. 
+A certain phrase led to a song, which was sung with
+lightning rapidity, each performer making precisely the same
+gestures at precisely the same instant.  They were
+irresistible. McTeague, though he caught but a third of the
+jokes, could have listened all night.
+
+After the comedians had gone out, the iron advertisement
+curtain was let down.
+
+"What comes now?" said McTeague, bewildered.
+
+"It's the intermission of fifteen minutes now."
+
+The musicians disappeared through the rabbit hutch, and the
+audience stirred and stretched itself.  Most of the young
+men left their seats.
+
+During this intermission McTeague and his party had
+"refreshments."  Mrs. Sieppe and Trina had Queen Charlottes,
+McTeague drank a glass of beer, Owgooste ate the orange and
+one of the bananas.  He begged for a glass of lemonade,
+which was finally given him.
+
+"Joost to geep um quiet," observed Mrs. Sieppe.
+
+But almost immediately after drinking his lemonade Owgooste
+was seized with a sudden restlessness.  He twisted and
+wriggled in his seat, swinging his legs violently, looking
+about him with eyes full of a vague distress.  At length,
+just as the musicians were returning, he stood up and
+whispered energetically in his mother's ear.  Mrs. Sieppe
+was exasperated at once.
+
+"No, no," she cried, reseating him brusquely.
+
+The performance was resumed.  A lightning artist appeared,
+drawing caricatures and portraits with incredible swiftness. 
+He even went so far as to ask for subjects from the
+audience, and the names of prominent men were shouted to him
+from the gallery. He drew portraits of the President, of
+Grant, of Washington, of Napoleon Bonaparte, of Bismarck, of
+Garibaldi, of P. T. Barnum.
+
+And so the evening passed.  The hall grew very hot, and the
+smoke of innumerable cigars made the eyes smart.  A thick
+blue mist hung low over the heads of the audience.  The air
+was full of varied smells--the smell of stale cigars, of
+flat beer, of orange peel, of gas, of sachet powders, and of
+cheap perfumery.
+
+One "artist" after another came upon the stage.  McTeague's
+attention never wandered for a minute.  Trina and her
+mother enjoyed themselves hugely.  At every moment they made
+comments to one another, their eyes never leaving the stage.
+
+"Ain't dot fool joost too funny?"
+
+"That's a pretty song.  Don't you like that kind of a song?"
+
+"Wonderful!  It's wonderful!  Yes, yes, wonderful!  That's
+the word."
+
+Owgooste, however, lost interest.  He stood up in his place,
+his back to the stage, chewing a piece of orange peel and
+watching a little girl in her father's lap across the aisle,
+his eyes fixed in a glassy, ox-like stare.  But he was
+uneasy.  He danced from one foot to the other, and at
+intervals appealed in hoarse whispers to his mother, who 
+disdained an answer.
+
+"Ma, say, ma-ah," he whined, abstractedly chewing his orange
+peel, staring at the little girl.
+
+"Ma-ah, say, ma."  At times his monotonous plaint reached
+his mother's consciousness.  She suddenly realized what this
+was that was annoying her.
+
+"Owgooste, will you sit down?" She caught him up all at
+once, and jammed him down into his place.  "Be quiet, den;
+loog; listun at der yunge girls."
+
+Three young women and a young man who played a zither
+occupied the stage.  They were dressed in Tyrolese costume;
+they were yodlers, and sang in German about "mountain tops"
+and "bold hunters" and the like.  The yodling chorus was a
+marvel of flute-like modulations. The girls were really
+pretty, and were not made up in the least.  Their "turn" had
+a great success. Mrs. Sieppe was entranced.  Instantly she
+remembered her girlhood and her native Swiss village.
+
+"Ach, dot is heavunly; joost like der old country.  Mein
+gran'mutter used to be one of der mos' famous yodlers.  When
+I was leedle, I haf seen dem joost like dat."
+
+"Ma-ah," began Owgooste fretfully, as soon as the yodlers
+had departed.  He could not keep still an instant; he
+twisted from side to side, swinging his legs with incredible
+swiftness.
+
+"Ma-ah, I want to go ho-ome."
+
+"Pehave!" exclaimed his mother, shaking him by the arm;
+"loog, der leedle girl is watchun you.  Dis is der last dime
+I take you to der blay, you see."
+
+"I don't ca-are; I'm sleepy."  At length, to their great
+relief, he went to sleep, his head against his mother's arm.
+
+The kinetoscope fairly took their breaths away.
+
+"What will they do next?" observed Trina, in amazement.
+"Ain't that wonderful, Mac?"
+
+McTeague was awe-struck.
+
+"Look at that horse move his head," he cried excitedly,
+quite carried away.  "Look at that cable car coming--and the
+man going across the street.  See, here comes a truck. 
+Well, I never in all my life!  What would Marcus say to
+this?"
+
+"It's all a drick!" exclaimed Mrs. Sieppe, with sudden
+conviction.  "I ain't no fool; dot's nothun but a drick."
+
+"Well, of course, mamma," exclaimed Trina, "it's----"
+
+But Mrs. Sieppe put her head in the air.
+
+"I'm too old to be fooled," she persisted.  "It's a drick."
+Nothing more could be got out of her than this.
+
+The party stayed to the very end of the show, though the
+kinetoscope was the last number but one on the programme,
+and fully half the audience left immediately afterward. 
+However, while the unfortunate Irish comedian went through
+his "act" to the backs of the departing people, Mrs. Sieppe
+woke Owgooste, very cross and sleepy, and began getting her
+"things together."  As soon as he was awake Owgooste began
+fidgeting again.
+
+"Save der brogramme, Trina," whispered Mrs. Sieppe.  "Take
+ut home to popper.  Where is der hat of Owgooste?  Haf you
+got mein handkerchief, Trina?"
+
+But at this moment a dreadful accident happened to Owgooste;
+his distress reached its climax; his fortitude collapsed. 
+What a misery!  It was a veritable catastrophe, deplorable,
+lamentable, a thing beyond words!  For a moment he gazed
+wildly about him, helpless and petrified with astonishment
+and terror.  Then his grief found utterance, and the closing
+strains of the orchestra were mingled with a prolonged wail
+of infinite sadness.
+
+"Owgooste, what is ut?" cried his mother eyeing him with
+dawning suspicion; then suddenly, "What haf you done?  You
+haf ruin your new Vauntleroy gostume!"  Her face blazed;
+without more ado she smacked him soundly. Then it was that
+Owgooste touched the limit of his misery, his unhappiness,
+his horrible discomfort; his utter wretchedness was
+complete.  He filled the air with his doleful outcries.  The
+more he was smacked and shaken, the louder he wept.
+
+"What--what is the matter?" inquired McTeague.
+
+Trina's face was scarlet.  "Nothing, nothing," she exclaimed
+hastily, looking away.  "Come, we must be going.  It's about
+over."  The end of the show and the breaking up of the
+audience tided over the embarrassment of the moment.
+
+The party filed out at the tail end of the audience. 
+Already the lights were being extinguished and the ushers
+spreading druggeting over the upholstered seats.
+
+McTeague and the Sieppes took an uptown car that would bring
+them near Polk Street.  The car was crowded; McTeague and
+Owgooste were obliged to stand.  The little boy fretted to
+be taken in his mother's lap, but Mrs. Sieppe emphatically
+refused.
+
+On their way home they discussed the performance.
+
+"I--I like best der yodlers."
+
+"Ah, the soloist was the best--the lady who sang those sad
+songs."
+
+"Wasn't--wasn't that magic lantern wonderful, where the
+figures moved?  Wonderful--ah, wonderful!  And wasn't that
+first act funny, where the fellow fell down all the time? 
+And that musical act, and the fellow with the burnt-cork
+face who played 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' on the beer
+bottles."
+
+They got off at Polk Street and walked up a block to the
+flat. The street was dark and empty; opposite the flat, in
+the back of the deserted market, the ducks and geese were
+calling persistently.
+
+As they were buying their tamales from the half-breed
+Mexican at the street corner, McTeague observed:
+
+"Marcus ain't gone to bed yet.  See, there's a light in his
+window.  There!" he exclaimed at once, "I forgot the
+doorkey. Well, Marcus can let us in."
+
+Hardly had he rung the bell at the street door of the flat
+when the bolt was shot back.  In the hall at the top of the
+long, narrow staircase there was the sound of a great
+scurrying. Maria Macapa stood there, her hand upon the rope
+that drew the bolt; Marcus was at her side; Old Grannis was
+in the background, looking over their shoulders; while
+little Miss Baker leant over the banisters, a strange man in
+a drab overcoat at her side.  As McTeague's party stepped
+into the doorway a half-dozen voices cried:
+
+"Yes, it's them."
+
+"Is that you, Mac?"
+
+"Is that you, Miss Sieppe?"
+
+"Is your name Trina Sieppe?"
+
+Then, shriller than all the rest, Maria Macapa screamed:
+
+"Oh, Miss Sieppe, come up here quick.  Your lottery ticket
+has won five thousand dollars!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+
+"What nonsense!" answered Trina.
+
+"Ach Gott!  What is ut?" cried Mrs. Sieppe,
+misunderstanding, supposing a calamity.
+
+"What--what--what," stammered the dentist, confused by the
+lights, the crowded stairway, the medley of voices.  The
+party reached the landing.  The others surrounded them. 
+Marcus alone seemed to rise to the occasion.
+
+"Le' me be the first to congratulate you," he cried,
+catching Trina's hand.  Every one was talking at once.
+
+"Miss Sieppe, Miss Sieppe, your ticket has won five thousand
+dollars," cried Maria.  "Don't you remember the lottery
+ticket I sold you in Doctor McTeague's office?"
+
+"Trina!" almost screamed her mother.  "Five tausend thalers!
+five tausend thalers!  If popper were only here!"
+
+"What is it--what is it?" exclaimed McTeague, rolling his
+eyes.
+
+"What are you going to do with it, Trina?" inquired Marcus.
+
+"You're a rich woman, my dear," said Miss Baker, her little
+false curls quivering with excitement, "and I'm glad for
+your sake.  Let me kiss you.  To think I was in the room
+when you bought the ticket!"
+
+"Oh, oh!" interrupted Trina, shaking her head, "there is a
+mistake.  There must be.  Why--why should I win five
+thousand dollars?  It's nonsense!"
+
+"No mistake, no mistake," screamed Maria.  "Your number was
+400,012.  Here it is in the paper this evening.  I remember
+it well, because I keep an account."
+
+"But I know you're wrong," answered Trina, beginning to
+tremble in spite of herself.  "Why should I win?"
+
+"Eh?  Why shouldn't you?" cried her mother.
+
+In fact, why shouldn't she?  The idea suddenly occurred to
+Trina.  After all, it was not a question of effort or merit
+on her part.  Why should she suppose a mistake? What if it
+were true, this wonderful fillip of fortune striking in
+there like some chance-driven bolt?
+
+"Oh, do you think so?" she gasped.
+
+The stranger in the drab overcoat came forward.
+
+"It's the agent," cried two or three voices, simultaneously.
+
+"I guess you're one of the lucky ones, Miss Sieppe," he
+said.  I suppose you have kept your ticket."
+
+"Yes, yes; four three oughts twelve--I remember."
+
+"That's right," admitted the other.  "Present your ticket at
+the local branch office as soon as possible--the address is
+printed on the back of the ticket--and you'll receive a
+check on our bank for five thousand dollars.  Your number
+will have to be verified on our official list, but there's
+hardly a chance of a mistake.  I congratulate you."
+
+All at once a great shrill of gladness surged up in Trina. 
+She was to possess five thousand dollars.  She was carried
+away with the joy of her good fortune, a natural,
+spontaneous joy--the gaiety of a child with a new and
+wonderful toy.
+
+"Oh, I've won, I've won, I've won!" she cried, clapping her
+hands.  "Mamma, think of it.  I've won five thousand
+dollars, just by buying a ticket.  Mac, what do you say to
+that?  I've got five thousand dollars.  August, do you hear
+what's happened to sister?"
+
+"Kiss your mommer, Trina," suddenly commanded Mrs. Sieppe.
+"What efer will you do mit all dose money, eh, Trina?"
+
+"Huh!" exclaimed Marcus.  "Get married on it for one thing.
+Thereat they all shouted with laughter.  McTeague grinned,
+and looked about sheepishly.  "Talk about luck," muttered
+Marcus, shaking his head at the dentist; then suddenly he
+added:
+
+"Well, are we going to stay talking out here in the hall all
+night?  Can't we all come into your 'Parlors,' Mac?"
+
+"Sure, sure," exclaimed McTeague, hastily unlocking his
+door.
+
+"Efery botty gome," cried Mrs. Sieppe, genially. "Ain't ut
+so, Doktor?"
+
+"Everybody," repeated the dentist.  "There's--there's some
+beer."
+
+"We'll celebrate, by damn!" exclaimed Marcus.  "It ain't
+every day you win five thousand dollars.  It's only Sundays
+and legal holidays."  Again he set the company off into a
+gale of laughter.  Anything was funny at a time like this. 
+In some way every one of them felt elated.  The wheel of
+fortune had come spinning close to them.  They were near to
+this great sum of money.  It was as though they too had won.
+
+"Here's right where I sat when I bought that ticket," cried
+Trina, after they had come into the "Parlors," and Marcus
+had lit the gas.  "Right here in this chair."  She sat down
+in one of the rigid chairs under the steel engraving.
+"And, Marcus, you sat here----"
+
+"And I was just getting out of the operating chair,"
+interposed Miss Baker.
+
+"Yes, yes.  That's so; and you," continued Trina, pointing
+to Maria, "came up and said, 'Buy a ticket in the lottery;
+just a dollar.'  Oh, I remember it just as plain as though
+it was yesterday, and I wasn't going to at first----"
+
+"And don't you know I told Maria it was against the law?"
+
+"Yes, I remember, and then I gave her a dollar and put the
+ticket in my pocketbook.  It's in my pocketbook now at home
+in the top drawer of my bureau--oh, suppose it should be
+stolen now," she suddenly exclaimed.
+
+"It's worth big money now," asserted Marcus.
+
+"Five thousand dollars.  Who would have thought it?  It's
+wonderful."  Everybody started and turned.  It was McTeague. 
+He stood in the middle of the floor, wagging his huge head. 
+He seemed to have just realized what had happened.
+
+"Yes, sir, five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Marcus, with a
+sudden unaccountable mirthlessness.  "Five thousand dollars!  
+Do you get on to that?  Cousin Trina and you will be rich
+people."
+
+"At six per cent, that's twenty-five dollars a month,"
+hazarded the agent.
+
+"Think of it.  Think of it," muttered McTeague.  He went
+aimlessly about the room, his eyes wide, his enormous hands
+dangling.
+
+"A cousin of mine won forty dollars once," observed Miss
+Baker. "But he spent every cent of it buying more tickets,
+and never won anything."
+
+Then the reminiscences began.  Maria told about the butcher
+on the next block who had won twenty dollars the last
+drawing. Mrs. Sieppe knew a gasfitter in Oakland who had won
+several times; once a hundred dollars.  Little Miss Baker
+announced that she had always believed that lotteries were
+wrong; but, just the same, five thousand was five thousand.
+
+"It's all right when you win, ain't it, Miss Baker?"
+observed Marcus, with a certain sarcasm.  What was the
+matter with Marcus? At moments he seemed singularly out of
+temper.
+
+But the agent was full of stories.  He told his experiences,
+the legends and myths that had grown up around the history
+of the lottery; he told of the poor newsboy with a dying
+mother to support who had drawn a prize of fifteen thousand;
+of the man who was driven to suicide through want, but who
+held (had he but known it) the number that two days after
+his death drew the capital prize of thirty thousand dollars;
+of the little milliner who for ten years had played the
+lottery without success, and who had one day declared that
+she would buy but one more ticket and then give up trying,
+and of how this last ticket had brought her a fortune upon
+which she could retire; of tickets that had been lost or
+destroyed, and whose numbers had won fabulous sums at the
+drawing; of criminals, driven to vice by poverty, and who
+had reformed after winning competencies; of gamblers who
+played the lottery as they would play a faro bank, turning
+in their winnings again as soon as made, buying thousands of
+tickets all over the country; of superstitions as to
+terminal and initial numbers, and as to lucky days of
+purchase; of marvellous coincidences--three capital prizes
+drawn consecutively by the same town; a ticket bought by a
+millionaire and given to his boot-black, who won a thousand
+dollars upon it; the same number winning the same amount an
+indefinite number of times; and so on to infinity. 
+Invariably it was the needy who won, the destitute and
+starving woke to wealth and plenty, the virtuous toiler
+suddenly found his reward in a ticket bought at a hazard;
+the lottery was a great charity, the friend of the people, a
+vast beneficent machine that recognized neither rank nor
+wealth nor station.
+
+The company began to be very gay.  Chairs and tables were
+brought in from the adjoining rooms, and Maria was sent out
+for more beer and tamales, and also commissioned to buy a
+bottle of wine and some cake for Miss Baker, who abhorred
+beer.
+
+The "Dental Parlors" were in great confusion.  Empty beer
+bottles stood on the movable rack where the instruments were
+kept; plates and napkins were upon the seat of the
+operating chair and upon the stand of shelves in the corner,
+side by side with the concertina and the volumes of "Allen's
+Practical Dentist."  The canary woke and chittered crossly,
+his feathers puffed out; the husks of tamales littered the
+floor; the stone pug dog sitting before the little stove
+stared at the unusual scene, his glass eyes starting from
+their sockets.
+
+They drank and feasted in impromptu fashion.  Marcus
+Schouler assumed the office of master of ceremonies; he was
+in a lather of excitement, rushing about here and there,
+opening beer bottles, serving the tamales, slapping McTeague
+upon the back, laughing and joking continually.  He made
+McTeague sit at the head of the table, with Trina at his
+right and the agent at his left; he--when he sat down at
+all--occupied the foot, Maria Macapa at his left, while next
+to her was Mrs. Sieppe, opposite Miss Baker.  Owgooste had
+been put to bed upon the bed-lounge.
+
+"Where's Old Grannis?" suddenly exclaimed Marcus.  Sure
+enough, where had the old Englishman gone?  He had been
+there at first.
+
+"I called him down with everybody else," cried Maria Macapa,
+"as soon as I saw in the paper that Miss Sieppe had won.  We
+all came down to Mr. Schouler's room and waited for you to
+come home.  I think he must have gone back to his room.  
+I'll bet you'll find him sewing up his books."
+
+"No, no," observed Miss Baker, "not at this hour."
+
+Evidently the timid old gentleman had taken advantage of the
+confusion to slip unobtrusively away.
+
+"I'll go bring him down," shouted Marcus; "he's got to join
+us."
+
+Miss Baker was in great agitation.
+
+"I--I hardly think you'd better," she murmured; "he--he--I
+don't think he drinks beer."
+
+"He takes his amusement in sewin' up books," cried Maria.
+
+Marcus brought him down, nevertheless, having found him just
+preparing for bed.
+
+"I--I must apologize," stammered Old Grannis, as he stood
+in the doorway.  "I had not quite expected--I--find--
+find myself a little unprepared."  He was without collar and
+cravat, owing to Marcus Schouler's precipitate haste.  He
+was annoyed beyond words that Miss Baker saw him thus. 
+Could anything be more embarrassing?
+
+Old Grannis was introduced to Mrs. Sieppe and to Trina as
+Marcus's employer.  They shook hands solemnly.
+
+"I don't believe that he an' Miss Baker have ever been
+introduced," cried Maria Macapa, shrilly, "an' they've been
+livin' side by side for years."
+
+The two old people were speechless, avoiding each other's
+gaze. It had come at last; they were to know each other, to
+talk together, to touch each other's hands.
+
+Marcus brought Old Grannis around the table to little Miss
+Baker, dragging him by the coat sleeve, exclaiming: "Well, I
+thought you two people knew each other long ago.  Miss
+Baker, this is Mr. Grannis; Mr. Grannis, this is Miss
+Baker."  Neither spoke.  Like two little children they faced
+each other, awkward, constrained, tongue-tied with
+embarrassment.  Then Miss Baker put out her hand shyly.  Old
+Grannis touched it for an instant and let it fall.
+
+"Now you know each other," cried Marcus, "and it's about
+time."  For the first time their eyes met; Old Grannis
+trembled a little, putting his hand uncertainly to his chin. 
+Miss Baker flushed ever so slightly, but Maria Macapa passed
+suddenly between them, carrying a half empty beer bottle. 
+The two old people fell back from one another, Miss Baker
+resuming her seat.
+
+"Here's a place for you over here, Mr. Grannis," cried
+Marcus, making room for him at his side.  Old Grannis
+slipped into the chair, withdrawing at once from the
+company's notice.  He stared fixedly at his plate and did
+not speak again.  Old Miss Baker began to talk volubly
+across the table to Mrs. Sieppe about hot-house flowers and
+medicated flannels.
+
+It was in the midst of this little impromptu supper that the
+engagement of Trina and the dentist was announced.  In a
+pause in the chatter of conversation Mrs. Sieppe leaned
+forward and, speaking to the agent, said:
+
+"Vell, you know also my daughter Trina get married bretty
+soon. She and der dentist, Doktor McTeague, eh, yes?"
+
+There was a general exclamation.
+
+"I thought so all along," cried Miss Baker, excitedly.  "The
+first time I saw them together I said, 'What a pair!'"
+
+"Delightful!" exclaimed the agent, "to be married and win a
+snug little fortune at the same time."
+
+"So--So," murmured Old Grannis, nodding at his plate.
+
+"Good luck to you," cried Maria.
+
+"He's lucky enough already," growled Marcus under his
+breath, relapsing for a moment into one of those strange
+moods of sullenness which had marked him throughout the
+evening.
+
+Trina flushed crimson, drawing shyly nearer her mother.
+McTeague grinned from ear to ear, looking around from one to
+another, exclaiming "Huh!  Huh!"
+
+But the agent rose to his feet, a newly filled beer glass in
+his hand.  He was a man of the world, this agent.  He knew
+life.  He was suave and easy.  A diamond was on his little
+finger.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he began.  There was an instant
+silence. "This is indeed a happy occasion.  I--I am glad to
+be here to-night; to be a witness to such good fortune; to
+partake in these--in this celebration. Why, I feel almost as
+glad as if I had held four three oughts twelve myself; as if
+the five thousand were mine instead of belonging to our
+charming hostess. The good wishes of my humble self go out
+to Miss Sieppe in this moment of her good fortune, and I
+think--in fact, I am sure I can speak for the great
+institution, the great company I represent.  The company
+congratulates Miss Sieppe. We--they--ah--They wish her every
+happiness her new fortune can procure her.  It has been my
+duty, my--ah--cheerful duty to call upon the winners of
+large prizes and to offer the felicitation of the company. 
+I have, in my experience, called upon many such; but never
+have I seen fortune so happily bestowed as in this case. 
+The company have dowered the prospective bride.  I am
+sure I but echo the sentiments of this assembly when I wish
+all joy and happiness to this happy pair, happy in the
+possession of a snug little fortune, and happy--happy in--"
+he finished with a sudden inspiration--"in the possession of
+each other; I drink to the health, wealth, and happiness of
+the future bride and groom.  Let us drink standing up."  
+They drank with enthusiasm.  Marcus was carried away with
+the excitement of the moment.
+
+"Outa sight, outa sight," he vociferated, clapping his
+hands. "Very well said.  To the health of the bride. 
+McTeague, McTeague, speech, speech!"
+
+In an instant the whole table was clamoring for the dentist
+to speak.  McTeague was terrified; he gripped the table with
+both hands, looking wildly about him.
+
+"Speech, speech!" shouted Marcus, running around the table
+and endeavoring to drag McTeague up.
+
+"No--no--no," muttered the other.  "No speech."  The company
+rattled upon the table with their beer glasses, insisting
+upon a speech.  McTeague settled obstinately into his chair,
+very red in the face, shaking his head energetically.
+
+"Ah, go on!" he exclaimed; "no speech."
+
+"Ah, get up and say somethun, anyhow," persisted Marcus;
+"you ought to do it.  It's the proper caper."
+
+McTeague heaved himself up; there was a burst of applause;
+he looked slowly about him, then suddenly sat down again,
+shaking his head hopelessly.
+
+"Oh, go on, Mac," cried Trina.
+
+"Get up, say somethun, anyhow, cried Marcus, tugging at his
+arm; "you GOT to."
+
+Once more McTeague rose to his feet.
+
+"Huh!" he exclaimed, looking steadily at the table. Then he
+began:
+
+"I don' know what to say--I--I--I ain't never made a speech
+before; I--I ain't never made a speech before.  But I'm glad
+Trina's won the prize--"
+
+"Yes, I'll bet you are," muttered Marcus.
+
+"I--I--I'm glad Trina's won, and I--I want to--I want
+to--I want to--want to say that--you're--all--welcome, an'
+drink hearty, an' I'm much obliged to the agent.  Trina and
+I are goin' to be married, an' I'm glad everybody's here to-
+night, an' you're--all--welcome, an' drink hearty, an' I
+hope you'll come again, an' you're always welcome--an'--I--
+an'--an'--That's--about--all--I--gotta say."  He sat down,
+wiping his forehead, amidst tremendous applause.
+
+Soon after that the company pushed back from the table and
+relaxed into couples and groups.  The men, with the
+exception of Old Grannis, began to smoke, the smell of their
+tobacco mingling with the odors of ether, creosote, and
+stale bedding, which pervaded the "Parlors."  Soon the
+windows had to be lowered from the top.  Mrs.  Sieppe and
+old Miss Baker sat together in the bay window exchanging
+confidences.  Miss Baker had turned back the overskirt of
+her dress; a plate of cake was in her lap; from time to time
+she sipped her wine with the delicacy of a white cat.  The
+two women were much interested in each other.  Miss Baker
+told Mrs. Sieppe all about Old Grannis, not forgetting the
+fiction of the title and the unjust stepfather.
+
+"He's quite a personage really," said Miss Baker.
+
+Mrs.  Sieppe led the conversation around to her children. 
+"Ach, Trina is sudge a goote girl," she said; "always gay,
+yes, und sing from morgen to night.  Und Owgooste, he is soh
+smart also, yes, eh?  He has der genius for machines, always
+making somethun mit wheels und sbrings."
+
+"Ah, if--if--I had children," murmured the little old maid a
+trifle wistfully, "one would have been a sailor; he would
+have begun as a midshipman on my brother's ship; in time he
+would have been an officer.  The other would have been a
+landscape gardener."
+
+"Oh, Mac!" exclaimed Trina, looking up into the dentist's
+face, "think of all this money coming to us just at this
+very moment. Isn't it wonderful?  Don't it kind of scare
+you?"
+
+"Wonderful, wonderful!" muttered McTeague, shaking his head.
+"Let's buy a lot of tickets," he added, struck with an idea.
+
+"Now, that's how you can always tell a good cigar,"
+observed the agent to Marcus as the two sat smoking at the
+end of the table. "The light end should be rolled to a
+point."
+
+"Ah, the Chinese cigar-makers," cried Marcus, in a passion,
+brandishing his fist.  "It's them as is ruining the cause of
+white labor.  They are, they are for a FACT.  Ah, the
+rat-eaters!  Ah, the white-livered curs!"
+
+Over in the corner, by the stand of shelves, Old Grannis was
+listening to Maria Macapa.  The Mexican woman had been
+violently stirred over Trina's sudden wealth; Maria's mind
+had gone back to her younger days. She leaned forward, her
+elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, her eyes wide
+and fixed.  Old Grannis listened to her attentively.
+
+"There wa'n't a piece that was so much as scratched," Maria
+was saying.  "Every piece was just like a mirror, smooth and
+bright; oh, bright as a little sun.  Such a service as that
+was--platters and soup tureens and an immense big punch-
+bowl. Five thousand dollars, what does that amount to?  Why,
+that punch-bowl alone was worth a fortune."
+
+"What a wonderful story!" exclaimed Old Grannis, never for
+an instant doubting its truth.  "And it's all lost now, you
+say?"
+
+"Lost, lost," repeated Maria.
+
+"Tut, tut!  What a pity!  What a pity!"
+
+Suddenly the agent rose and broke out with:
+
+"Well, I must be going, if I'm to get any car."
+
+He shook hands with everybody, offered a parting cigar to
+Marcus, congratulated McTeague and Trina a last time, and
+bowed himself out.
+
+"What an elegant gentleman," commented Miss Baker.
+
+"Ah," said Marcus, nodding his head, "there's a man of the
+world for you.  Right on to himself, by damn!"
+
+The company broke up.
+
+"Come along, Mac," cried Marcus; "we're to sleep with the
+dogs to-night, you know."
+
+The two friends said "Good-night" all around and departed
+for the little dog hospital.
+
+Old Grannis hurried to his room furtively, terrified
+lest he should again be brought face to face with Miss
+Baker.  He bolted himself in and listened until he heard her
+foot in the hall and the soft closing of her door.  She was
+there close beside him; as one might say, in the same room;
+for he, too, had made the discovery as to the similarity of
+the wallpaper.  At long intervals he could hear a faint
+rustling as she moved about. What an evening that had been
+for him!  He had met her, had spoken to her, had touched her
+hand; he was in a tremor of excitement.  In a like manner
+the little old dressmaker listened and quivered.  HE was
+there in that same room which they shared in common,
+separated only by the thinnest board partition.  He was
+thinking of her, she was almost sure of it. They were
+strangers no longer; they were acquaintances, friends. What
+an event that evening had been in their lives!
+
+Late as it was, Miss Baker brewed a cup of tea and sat down
+in her rocking chair close to the partition; she rocked
+gently, sipping her tea, calming herself after the emotions
+of that wonderful evening.
+
+Old Grannis heard the clinking of the tea things and smelt
+the faint odor of the tea.  It seemed to him a signal, an
+invitation.  He drew his chair close to his side of the
+partition, before his work-table.  A pile of half-bound
+"Nations" was in the little binding apparatus; he threaded
+his huge upholsterer's needle with stout twine and set to
+work.
+
+It was their tete-a-tete.  Instinctively they felt each
+other's presence, felt each other's thought coming to them
+through the thin partition.  It was charming; they were
+perfectly happy.  There in the stillness that settled over
+the flat in the half hour after midnight the two old people
+"kept company," enjoying after their fashion their little
+romance that had come so late into the lives of each.
+
+On the way to her room in the garret Maria Macapa paused
+under the single gas-jet that burned at the top of the well
+of the staircase; she assured herself that she was alone,
+and then drew from her pocket one of McTeague's "tapes" of
+non-cohesive gold. It was the most valuable steal she
+had ever yet made in the dentist's "Parlors."  She told
+herself that it was worth at least a couple of dollars. 
+Suddenly an idea occurred to her, and she went hastily to a
+window at the end of the hall, and, shading her face with
+both hands, looked down into the little alley just back of
+the flat.  On some nights Zerkow, the red-headed Polish Jew,
+sat up late, taking account of the week's ragpicking.  There
+was a dim light in his window now.
+
+Maria went to her room, threw a shawl around her head, and
+descended into the little back yard of the flat by the back
+stairs.  As she let herself out of the back gate into the
+alley, Alexander, Marcus's Irish setter, woke suddenly with
+a gruff bark.  The collie who lived on the other side of the
+fence, in the back yard of the branch post-office, answered
+with a snarl. Then in an instant the endless feud between
+the two dogs was resumed.  They dragged their respective
+kennels to the fence, and through the cracks raged at each
+other in a frenzy of hate; their teeth snapped and gleamed;
+the hackles on their backs rose and stiffened.  Their
+hideous clamor could have been heard for blocks around. What
+a massacre should the two ever meet!
+
+Meanwhile, Maria was knocking at Zerkow's miserable hovel.
+
+"Who is it?  Who is it?" cried the rag-picker from within,
+in his hoarse voice, that was half whisper, starting
+nervously, and sweeping a handful of silver into his drawer.
+
+"It's me, Maria Macapa;" then in a lower voice, and as if
+speaking to herself, "had a flying squirrel an' let him go."
+
+"Ah, Maria," cried Zerkow, obsequiously opening the door. 
+"Come in, come in, my girl; you're always welcome, even as
+late as this.  No junk, hey?  But you're welcome for all
+that.  You'll have a drink, won't you?"  He led her into his
+back room and got down the whiskey bottle and the broken red
+tumbler.
+
+After the two had drunk together Maria produced the gold
+"tape."  Zerkow's eyes glittered on the instant. The sight
+of gold invariably sent a qualm all through him; try as he
+would, he could not repress it.  His fingers trembled and
+clawed at his mouth; his breath grew short.
+
+"Ah, ah, ah!" he exclaimed, "give it here, give it here;
+give it to me, Maria.  That's a good girl, come give it to
+me."
+
+They haggled as usual over the price, but to-night Maria was
+too excited over other matters to spend much time in
+bickering over a few cents.
+
+"Look here, Zerkow," she said as soon as the transfer was
+made, "I got something to tell you.  A little while ago I
+sold a lottery ticket to a girl at the flat; the drawing was
+in this evening's papers.  How much do you suppose that girl
+has won?"
+
+"I don't know.  How much?  How much?"
+
+"Five thousand dollars."
+
+It was as though a knife had been run through the Jew; a
+spasm of an almost physical pain twisted his face--his
+entire body. He raised his clenched fists into the air, his
+eyes shut, his teeth gnawing his lip.
+
+"Five thousand dollars," he whispered; "five thousand
+dollars. For what? For nothing, for simply buying a ticket;
+and I have worked so hard for it, so hard, so hard.  Five
+thousand dollars, five thousand dollars.  Oh, why couldn't
+it have come to me?" he cried, his voice choking, the tears
+starting to his eyes; "why couldn't it have come to me?  To
+come so close, so close, and yet to miss me--me who have
+worked for it, fought for it, starved for it, am dying for
+it every day.  Think of it, Maria, five thousand dollars,
+all bright, heavy pieces----"
+
+"Bright as a sunset," interrupted Maria, her chin propped on
+her hands.  "Such a glory, and heavy.  Yes, every piece was
+heavy, and it was all you could do to lift the punch-bowl. 
+Why, that punch-bowl was worth a fortune alone----"
+
+"And it rang when you hit it with your knuckles, didn't it?"
+prompted Zerkow, eagerly, his lips trembling, his fingers
+hooking themselves into claws.
+
+"Sweeter'n any church bell," continued Maria.
+
+"Go on, go on, go on," cried Zerkow, drawing his chair
+closer, and shutting his eyes in ecstasy.
+
+"There were more than a hundred pieces, and every one of
+them gold----"
+
+"Ah, every one of them gold."
+
+"You should have seen the sight when the leather trunk was
+opened.  There wa'n't a piece that was so much as scratched;
+every one was like a mirror, smooth and bright, polished so
+that it looked black--you know how I mean."
+
+"Oh, I know, I know," cried Zerkow, moistening his lips.
+
+Then he plied her with questions--questions that covered
+every detail of that service of plate.  It was soft, wasn't
+it?  You could bite into a plate and leave a dent?  The
+handles of the knives, now, were they gold, too?  All the
+knife was made from one piece of gold, was it?  And the
+forks the same?  The interior of the trunk was quilted, of
+course?  Did Maria ever polish the plates herself?  When the
+company ate off this service, it must have made a fine
+noise--these gold knives and forks clinking together upon
+these gold plates.
+
+"Now, let's have it all over again, Maria," pleaded Zerkow.
+"Begin now with 'There were more than a hundred pieces, and
+every one of them gold.'  Go on, begin, begin, begin!"
+
+The red-headed Pole was in a fever of excitement. Maria's
+recital had become a veritable mania with him.  As he
+listened, with closed eyes and trembling lips, he fancied he
+could see that wonderful plate before him, there on the
+table, under his eyes, under his hand, ponderous, massive,
+gleaming.  He tormented Maria into a second repetition of
+the story--into a third.  The more his mind dwelt upon it,
+the sharper grew his desire.  Then, with Maria's refusal to
+continue the tale, came the reaction.  Zerkow awoke as from
+some ravishing dream.  The plate was gone, was irretrievably
+lost.  There was nothing in that miserable room but grimy
+rags and rust-corroded iron.  What torment! what agony! to
+be so near--so near, to see it in one's distorted fancy as
+plain as in a mirror.  To know every individual piece as an
+old friend; to feel its weight; to be dazzled by its
+glitter; to call it one's own, own; to have it to oneself,
+hugged to the breast; and then to start, to wake, to come
+down to the horrible reality.
+
+"And you, YOU had it once," gasped Zerkow, clawing at
+her arm; "you had it once, all your own.  Think of it,
+and now it's gone."
+
+"Gone for good and all."
+
+"Perhaps it's buried near your old place somewhere."
+
+"It's gone--gone--gone," chanted Maria in a monotone.
+
+Zerkow dug his nails into his scalp, tearing at his red
+hair.
+
+"Yes, yes, it's gone, it's gone--lost forever!  Lost
+forever!"
+
+Marcus and the dentist walked up the silent street and
+reached the little dog hospital.  They had hardly spoken on
+the way. McTeague's brain was in a whirl; speech failed him. 
+He was busy thinking of the great thing that had happened
+that night, and was trying to realize what its effect would
+be upon his life--his life and Trina's.  As soon as they had
+found themselves in the street, Marcus had relapsed at once
+to a sullen silence, which McTeague was too abstracted to
+notice.
+
+They entered the tiny office of the hospital with its red
+carpet, its gas stove, and its colored prints of famous dogs
+hanging against the walls.  In one corner stood the iron bed
+which they were to occupy.
+
+"You go on an' get to bed, Mac," observed Marcus. "I'll take
+a look at the dogs before I turn in."
+
+He went outside and passed along into the yard, that was
+bounded on three sides by pens where the dogs were kept.  A
+bull terrier dying of gastritis recognized him and began to
+whimper feebly.
+
+Marcus paid no attention to the dogs.  For the first time
+that evening he was alone and could give vent to his
+thoughts.  He took a couple of turns up and down the yard,
+then suddenly in a low voice exclaimed:
+
+"You fool, you fool, Marcus Schouler!  If you'd kept Trina
+you'd have had that money.  You might have had it yourself. 
+You've thrown away your chance in life--to give up the girl,
+yes--but this," he stamped his foot with rage--"to throw
+five thousand dollars out of the window--to stuff it into
+the pockets of someone else, when it might have been
+yours, when you might have had Trina AND the money--and
+all for what? Because we were pals . Oh, 'pals' is all
+right--but five thousand dollars--to have played it right
+into his hands--God DAMN the luck!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+
+The next two months were delightful.  Trina and McTeague saw
+each other regularly, three times a week. The dentist went
+over to B Street Sunday and Wednesday afternoons as usual;
+but on Fridays it was Trina who came to the city.  She spent
+the morning between nine and twelve o'clock down town, for
+the most part in the cheap department stores, doing the
+weekly shopping for herself and the family.  At noon she
+took an uptown car and met McTeague at the corner of Polk
+Street.  The two lunched together at a small uptown hotel
+just around the corner on Sutter Street.  They were given a
+little room to themselves. Nothing could have been more
+delicious.  They had but to close the sliding door to shut
+themselves off from the whole world.
+
+Trina would arrive breathless from her raids upon the
+bargain counters, her pale cheeks flushed, her hair blown
+about her face and into the corners of her lips, her
+mother's net reticule stuffed to bursting.  Once in their
+tiny private room, she would drop into her chair with a
+little groan.
+
+"Oh, MAC, I am so tired; I've just been all OVER
+town. Oh, it's good to sit down.  Just think, I had to stand
+up in the car all the way, after being on my feet the whole
+blessed morning.  Look here what I've bought.  Just things
+and things. Look, there's some dotted veiling I got for
+myself; see now, do you think it looks pretty?"--she spread
+it over her face--"and I got a box of writing paper, and a
+roll of crepe paper to make a lamp shade for the front
+parlor; and--what do you suppose--I saw a pair of Nottingham
+lace curtains for FORTY-NINE CENTS; isn't that cheap?
+and some chenille portieres for two and a half.  Now what
+have YOU been doing since I last saw you? Did Mr. Heise
+finally get up enough courage to have his tooth pulled yet?" 
+Trina took off her hat and veil and rearranged her hair
+before the looking-glass.
+
+"No, no--not yet.  I went down to the sign painter's
+yesterday afternoon to see about that big gold tooth for a
+sign.  It costs too much; I can't get it yet a while. 
+There's two kinds, one German gilt and the other French
+gilt; but the German gilt is no good."
+
+McTeague sighed, and wagged his head.  Even Trina and the
+five thousand dollars could not make him forget this one
+unsatisfied longing.
+
+At other times they would talk at length over their plans,
+while Trina sipped her chocolate and McTeague devoured huge
+chunks of butterless bread.  They were to be married at the
+end of May, and the dentist already had his eye on a couple
+of rooms, part of the suite of a bankrupt photographer. 
+They were situated in the flat, just back of his "Parlors,"
+and he believed the photographer would sublet them
+furnished.
+
+McTeague and Trina had no apprehensions as to their
+finances. They could be sure, in fact, of a tidy little
+income.  The dentist's practice was fairly good, and they
+could count upon the interest of Trina's five thousand
+dollars.  To McTeague's mind this interest seemed woefully
+small.  He had had uncertain ideas about that five thousand
+dollars; had imagined that they would spend it in some
+lavish fashion; would buy a house, perhaps, or would furnish
+their new rooms with overwhelming luxury--luxury that
+implied red velvet carpets and continued feasting.  The old-
+time miner's idea of wealth easily gained and quickly spent
+persisted in his mind.  But when Trina had begun to talk of
+investments and interests and per cents, he was troubled and
+not a little disappointed.  The lump sum of five
+thousand dollars was one thing, a miserable little twenty or
+twenty-five a month was quite another; and then someone else
+had the money.
+
+"But don't you see, Mac," explained Trina, "it's ours just
+the same.  We could get it back whenever we wanted it; and
+then it's the reasonable way to do.  We mustn't let it turn
+our heads, Mac, dear, like that man that spent all he won in
+buying more tickets.  How foolish we'd feel after we'd spent
+it all!  We ought to go on just the same as before; as if we
+hadn't won.  We must be sensible about it, mustn't we?"
+
+"Well, well, I guess perhaps that's right," the dentist
+would answer, looking slowly about on the floor.
+
+Just what should ultimately be done with the money was the
+subject of endless discussion in the Sieppe family.  The
+savings bank would allow only three per cent., but Trina's
+parents believed that something better could be got.
+
+"There's Uncle Oelbermann," Trina had suggested, remembering
+the rich relative who had the wholesale toy store in the
+Mission.
+
+Mr. Sieppe struck his hand to his forehead.  "Ah, an idea,"
+he cried.  In the end an agreement was made.  The money was
+invested in Mr. Oelbermann's business. He gave Trina six per
+cent.
+
+Invested in this fashion, Trina's winning would bring in
+twenty-five dollars a month.  But, besides this, Trina had
+her own little trade.  She made Noah's ark animals for Uncle
+Oelbermann's store.  Trina's ancestors on both sides were
+German-Swiss, and some long-forgotten forefather of the
+sixteenth century, some worsted-leggined wood-carver of the
+Tyrol, had handed down the talent of the national industry,
+to reappear in this strangely distorted guise.
+
+She made Noah's ark animals, whittling them out of a block
+of soft wood with a sharp jack-knife, the only instrument
+she used.  Trina was very proud to explain her work to
+McTeague as he had already explained his own to her.
+
+"You see, I take a block of straight-grained pine and cut
+out the shape, roughly at first, with the big blade; then I
+go over it a second time with the little blade, more
+carefully; then I put in the ears and tail with a drop of
+glue, and paint it with a 'non-poisonous' paint--Vandyke
+brown for the horses, foxes, and cows; slate gray for the
+elephants and camels; burnt umber for the chickens, zebras,
+and so on; then, last, a dot of Chinese white for the eyes,
+and there you are, all finished. They sell for nine cents a
+dozen.  Only I can't make the manikins."
+
+"The manikins?"
+
+"The little figures, you know--Noah and his wife, and Shem,
+and all the others."
+
+It was true.  Trina could not whittle them fast enough and
+cheap enough to compete with the turning lathe, that could
+throw off whole tribes and peoples of manikins while she was
+fashioning one family.  Everything else, however, she made--
+the ark itself, all windows and no door; the box in which
+the whole was packed; even down to pasting on the label,
+which read, "Made in France."  She earned from three to four
+dollars a week.
+
+The income from these three sources, McTeague's profession,
+the interest of the five thousand dollars, and Trina's
+whittling, made a respectable little sum taken altogether. 
+Trina declared they could even lay by something, adding to
+the five thousand dollars little by little.
+
+It soon became apparent that Trina would be an
+extraordinarily good housekeeper.  Economy was her strong
+point.  A good deal of peasant blood still ran undiluted in
+her veins, and she had all the instinct of a hardy and
+penurious mountain race--the instinct which saves without
+any thought, without idea of consequence--saving for the
+sake of saving, hoarding without knowing why.  Even McTeague
+did not know how closely Trina held to her new-found wealth.
+
+But they did not always pass their luncheon hour in this
+discussion of incomes and economies.  As the dentist came to
+know his little woman better she grew to be more and more of
+a puzzle and a joy to him.  She would suddenly interrupt a
+grave discourse upon the rents of rooms and the cost of
+light and fuel with a brusque outburst of affection that set
+him all a-tremble with delight.  All at once she would
+set down her chocolate, and, leaning across the narrow
+table, would exclaim:
+
+"Never mind all that!  Oh, Mac, do you truly, really love
+me--love me BIG?"
+
+McTeague would stammer something, gasping, and wagging his
+head, beside himself for the lack of words.
+
+"Old bear," Trina would answer, grasping him by both huge
+ears and swaying his head from side to side.  "Kiss me,
+then.  Tell me, Mac, did you think any less of me that first
+time I let you kiss me there in the station?  Oh, Mac, dear,
+what a funny nose you've got, all full of hairs inside; and,
+Mac, do you know you've got a bald spot--" she dragged his
+head down towards her--"right on the top of your head."  
+Then she would seriously kiss the bald spot in question,
+declaring:
+
+"That'll make the hair grow."
+
+Trina took an infinite enjoyment in playing with McTeague's
+great square-cut head, rumpling his hair till it stood on
+end, putting her fingers in his eyes, or stretching his ears
+out straight, and watching the effect with her head on one
+side.  It was like a little child playing with some
+gigantic, good-natured Saint Bernard.
+
+One particular amusement they never wearied of.  The two
+would lean across the table towards each other, McTeague
+folding his arms under his breast.  Then Trina, resting on
+her elbows, would part his mustache-the great blond mustache
+of a viking--with her two hands, pushing it up from his
+lips, causing his face to assume the appearance of a Greek
+mask.  She would curl it around either forefinger, drawing
+it to a fine end.  Then all at once McTeague would make a
+fearful snorting noise through his nose. Invariably--though
+she was expecting this, though it was part of the game--
+Trina would jump with a stifled shriek.  McTeague would
+bellow with laughter till his eyes watered.  Then they would
+recommence upon the instant, Trina protesting with a nervous
+tremulousness:
+
+"Now--now--now, Mac, DON'T; you SCARE me so."
+
+But these delicious tete-a-tetes with Trina were offset
+by a certain coolness that Marcus Schouler began to
+affect towards the dentist.  At first McTeague was unaware
+of it; but by this time even his slow wits began to perceive
+that his best friend--his "pal"--was not the same to him as
+formerly.  They continued to meet at lunch nearly every day
+but Friday at the car conductors' coffee-joint.  But Marcus
+was sulky; there could be no doubt about that.  He avoided
+talking to McTeague, read the paper continually, answering
+the dentist's timid efforts at conversation in gruff
+monosyllables.  Sometimes, even, he turned sideways to the
+table and talked at great length to Heise the harness-maker,
+whose table was next to theirs.  They took no more long
+walks together when Marcus went out to exercise the dogs. 
+Nor did Marcus ever again recur to his generosity in
+renouncing Trina.
+
+One Tuesday, as McTeague took his place at the table in the
+coffee-joint, he found Marcus already there.
+
+"Hello, Mark," said the dentist, "you here already?"
+
+"Hello," returned the other, indifferently, helping himself
+to tomato catsup.  There was a silence.  After a long while
+Marcus suddenly looked up.
+
+"Say, Mac," he exclaimed, "when you going to pay me that
+money you owe me?"
+
+McTeague was astonished.
+
+"Huh?  What?  I don't--do I owe you any money, Mark?"
+
+"Well, you owe me four bits," returned Marcus, doggedly.  "I
+paid for you and Trina that day at the picnic, and you never
+gave it back."
+
+"Oh--oh!" answered McTeague, in distress.  "That's so,
+that's so.  I--you ought to have told me before.  Here's
+your money, and I'm obliged to you."
+
+"It ain't much," observed Marcus, sullenly.  "But I need all
+I can get now-a-days."
+
+"Are you--are you broke?" inquired McTeague.
+
+"And I ain't saying anything about your sleeping at the
+hospital that night, either," muttered Marcus, as he
+pocketed the coin.
+
+"Well--well--do you mean--should I have paid for that?"
+
+"Well, you'd 'a' had to sleep SOMEWHERES, wouldn't
+you?" flashed out Marcus.  "You 'a' had to pay half a dollar
+for a bed at the flat."
+
+"All right, all right," cried the dentist, hastily, feeling
+in his pockets.  "I don't want you should be out anything on
+my account, old man.  Here, will four bits do?"
+
+"I don't WANT your damn money," shouted Marcus in a
+sudden rage, throwing back the coin.  "I ain't no beggar."
+
+McTeague was miserable.  How had he offended his pal?
+
+"Well, I want you should take it, Mark," he said, pushing it
+towards him.
+
+"I tell you I won't touch your money," exclaimed the other
+through his clenched teeth, white with passion.  "I've been
+played for a sucker long enough."
+
+"What's the matter with you lately, Mark?" remonstrated
+McTeague.  "You've got a grouch about something.  Is there
+anything I've done?"
+
+"Well, that's all right, that's all right," returned Marcus
+as he rose from the table.  "That's all right. I've been
+played for a sucker long enough, that's all. I've been
+played for a sucker long enough."  He went away with a
+parting malevolent glance.
+
+At the corner of Polk Street, between the flat and the car
+conductors' coffee-joint, was Frenna's.  It was a corner
+grocery; advertisements for cheap butter and eggs, painted
+in green marking-ink upon wrapping paper, stood about on the
+sidewalk outside.  The doorway was decorated with a huge
+Milwaukee beer sign.  Back of the store proper was a bar
+where white sand covered the floor.  A few tables and chairs
+were scattered here and there.  The walls were hung with
+gorgeously-colored tobacco advertisements and colored
+lithographs of trotting horses.  On the wall behind the bar
+was a model of a full-rigged ship enclosed in a bottle.
+
+It was at this place that the dentist used to leave his
+pitcher to be filled on Sunday afternoons.  Since his
+engagement to Trina he had discontinued this habit. 
+However, he still dropped into Frenna's one or two
+nights in the week.  He spent a pleasant hour there, smoking
+his huge porcelain pipe and drinking his beer.  He never
+joined any of the groups of piquet players around the
+tables.  In fact, he hardly spoke to anyone but the
+bartender and Marcus.
+
+For Frenna's was one of Marcus Schouler's haunts; a great
+deal of his time was spent there.  He involved himself in
+fearful political and social discussions with Heise the
+harness-maker, and with one or two old German, habitues
+of the place.  These discussions Marcus carried on, as was
+his custom, at the top of his voice, gesticulating fiercely,
+banging the table with his fists, brandishing the plates and
+glasses, exciting himself with his own clamor.
+
+On a certain Saturday evening, a few days after the scene at
+the coffee-joint, the dentist bethought him to spend a quiet
+evening at Frenna's.  He had not been there for some time,
+and, besides that, it occurred to him that the day was his
+birthday.  He would permit himself an extra pipe and a few
+glasses of beer. When McTeague entered Frenna's back room by
+the street door, he found Marcus and Heise already installed
+at one of the tables. Two or three of the old Germans sat
+opposite them, gulping their beer from time to time.  Heise
+was smoking a cigar, but Marcus had before him his fourth
+whiskey cocktail.  At the moment of McTeague's entrance
+Marcus had the floor.
+
+"It can't be proven," he was yelling.  "I defy any sane
+politician whose eyes are not blinded by party prejudices,
+whose opinions are not warped by a personal bias, to
+substantiate such a statement.  Look at your facts, look at
+your figures.  I am a free American citizen, ain't I?  I pay
+my taxes to support a good government, don't I?  It's a
+contract between me and the government, ain't it?  Well,
+then, by damn! if the authorities do not or will not afford
+me protection for life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness, then my obligations are at an end; I withhold my
+taxes.  I do--I do--I say I do.  What?"  He glared about
+him, seeking opposition.
+
+"That's nonsense," observed Heise, quietly.  "Try it
+once; you'll get jugged."  But this observation of the
+harness-maker's roused Marcus to the last pitch of frenzy.
+
+"Yes, ah, yes!" he shouted, rising to his feet, shaking his
+finger in the other's face.  "Yes, I'd go to jail; but
+because I--I am crushed by a tyranny, does that make the
+tyranny right? Does might make right?"
+
+"You must make less noise in here, Mister Schouler," said
+Frenna, from behind the bar.
+
+"Well, it makes me mad," answered Marcus, subsiding into a
+growl and resuming his chair.  "Hullo, Mac."
+
+"Hullo, Mark."
+
+But McTeague's presence made Marcus uneasy, rousing in him
+at once a sense of wrong.  He twisted to and fro in his
+chair, shrugging first one shoulder and then another. 
+Quarrelsome at all times, the heat of the previous
+discussion had awakened within him all his natural
+combativeness.  Besides this, he was drinking his fourth
+cocktail.
+
+McTeague began filling his big porcelain pipe.  He lit it,
+blew a great cloud of smoke into the room, and settled
+himself comfortably in his chair.  The smoke of his cheap
+tobacco drifted into the faces of the group at the adjoining
+table, and Marcus strangled and coughed.  Instantly his eyes
+flamed.
+
+"Say, for God's sake," he vociferated, "choke off on that
+pipe!  If you've got to smoke rope like that, smoke it in a
+crowd of muckers; don't come here amongst gentlemen."
+
+"Shut up, Schouler!" observed Heise in a low voice.
+
+McTeague was stunned by the suddenness of the attack.  He
+took his pipe from his mouth, and stared blankly at Marcus;
+his lips moved, but he said no word.  Marcus turned his back
+on him, and the dentist resumed his pipe.
+
+But Marcus was far from being appeased.  McTeague could not
+hear the talk that followed between him and the harness-
+maker, but it seemed to him that Marcus was telling Heise of
+some injury, some grievance, and that the latter was trying
+to pacify him.  All at once their talk grew louder.  Heise
+laid a retaining hand upon his companion's coat sleeve,
+but Marcus swung himself around in his chair, and, fixing
+his eyes on McTeague, cried as if in answer to some
+protestation on the part of Heise:
+
+"All I know is that I've been soldiered out of five thousand
+dollars."
+
+McTeague gaped at him, bewildered.  He removed his pipe from
+his mouth a second time, and stared at Marcus with eyes full
+of trouble and perplexity.
+
+"If I had my rights," cried Marcus, bitterly, "I'd have part
+of that money.  It's my due--it's only justice."  The
+dentist still kept silence.
+
+"If it hadn't been for me," Marcus continued, addressing
+himself directly to McTeague, "you wouldn't have had a cent
+of it--no, not a cent.  Where's my share, I'd like to know? 
+Where do I come in?  No, I ain't in it any more.  I've been
+played for a sucker, an' now that you've got all you can out
+of me, now that you've done me out of my girl and out of my
+money, you give me the go-by.  Why, where would you have
+been TO-DAY if it hadn't been for me?"  Marcus shouted
+in a sudden exasperation, "You'd a been plugging teeth at
+two bits an hour.  Ain't you got any gratitude?  Ain't you
+got any sense of decency?"
+
+"Ah, hold up, Schouler," grumbled Heise.  "You don't want to
+get into a row."
+
+"No, I don't, Heise," returned Marcus, with a plaintive,
+aggrieved air. "But it's too much sometimes when you think
+of it.  He stole away my girl's affections, and now that
+he's rich and prosperous, and has got five thousand dollars
+that I might have had, he gives me the go-by; he's played me
+for a sucker.  Look here," he cried, turning again to
+McTeague, "do I get any of that money?"
+
+"It ain't mine to give," answered McTeague.  "You're drunk,
+that's what you are."
+
+"Do I get any of that money?" cried Marcus, persistently.
+
+The dentist shook his head.  "No, you don't get any of it."
+
+"Now--NOW," clamored the other, turning to the harness-
+maker, as though this explained everything.  "Look at that,
+look at that.  Well, I've done with you from now on."
+Marcus had risen to his feet by this time and made as if to
+leave, but at every instant he came back, shouting his
+phrases into McTeague's face, moving off again as he spoke
+the last words, in order to give them better effect.
+
+"This settles it right here.  I've done with you.  Don't you
+ever dare speak to me again"--his voice was shaking with
+fury--"and don't you sit at my table in the restaurant
+again.  I'm sorry I ever lowered myself to keep company with
+such dirt.  Ah, one-horse dentist!  Ah, ten-cent zinc-
+plugger--hoodlum--MUCKER!  Get your damn smoke outa my
+face."
+
+Then matters reached a sudden climax.  In his agitation the
+dentist had been pulling hard on his pipe, and as Marcus for
+the last time thrust his face close to his own, McTeague, in
+opening his lips to reply, blew a stifling, acrid cloud
+directly in Marcus Schouler's eyes.  Marcus knocked the pipe
+from his fingers with a sudden flash of his hand; it spun
+across the room and broke into a dozen fragments in a far
+corner.
+
+McTeague rose to his feet, his eyes wide.  But as yet he was
+not angry, only surprised, taken all aback by the suddenness
+of Marcus Schouler's outbreak as well as by its
+unreasonableness. Why had Marcus broken his pipe?  What did
+it all mean, anyway? As he rose the dentist made a vague
+motion with his right hand. Did Marcus misinterpret it as a
+gesture of menace?  He sprang back as though avoiding a
+blow.  All at once there was a cry. Marcus had made a quick,
+peculiar motion, swinging his arm upward with a wide and
+sweeping gesture; his jack-knife lay open in his palm; it
+shot forward as he flung it, glinted sharply by McTeague's
+head, and struck quivering into the wall behind.
+
+A sudden chill ran through the room; the others stood
+transfixed, as at the swift passage of some cold and deadly
+wind.  Death had stooped there for an instant, had stooped
+and past, leaving a trail of terror and confusion.  Then the
+door leading to the street slammed; Marcus had disappeared.
+
+Thereon a great babel of exclamation arose.  The tension
+of that all but fatal instant snapped, and speech
+became once more possible.
+
+"He would have knifed you."
+
+"Narrow escape."
+
+"What kind of a man do you call THAT?"
+
+"'Tain't his fault he ain't a murderer."
+
+"I'd have him up for it."
+
+"And they two have been the greatest kind of friends."
+
+"He didn't touch you, did he?"
+
+"No--no--no."
+
+"What a--what a devil!  What treachery!  A regular greaser
+trick!"
+
+"Look out he don't stab you in the back.  If that's the kind
+of man he is, you never can tell."
+
+Frenna drew the knife from the wall.
+
+"Guess I'll keep this toad-stabber," he observed. "That
+fellow won't come round for it in a hurry; goodsized blade,
+too."  The group examined it with intense interest.
+
+"Big enough to let the life out of any man," observed Heise.
+
+"What--what--what did he do it for?" stammered McTeague.  "I
+got no quarrel with him."
+
+He was puzzled and harassed by the strangeness of it all.
+Marcus would have killed him; had thrown his knife at him in
+the true, uncanny "greaser" style.  It was inexplicable. 
+McTeague sat down again, looking stupidly about on the
+floor.  In a corner of the room his eye encountered his
+broken pipe, a dozen little fragments of painted porcelain
+and the stem of cherry wood and amber.
+
+At that sight his tardy wrath, ever lagging behind the
+original affront, suddenly blazed up.  Instantly his huge
+jaws clicked together.
+
+"He can't make small of ME," he exclaimed, suddenly.
+"I'll show Marcus Schouler--I'll show him--I'll----"
+
+He got up and clapped on his hat.
+
+"Now, Doctor," remonstrated Heise, standing between him and
+the door, "don't go make a fool of yourself."
+
+"Let 'um alone," joined in Frenna, catching the dentist
+by the arm; "he's full, anyhow."
+
+"He broke my pipe," answered McTeague.
+
+It was this that had roused him.  The thrown knife, the
+attempt on his life, was beyond his solution; but the
+breaking of his pipe he understood clearly enough.
+
+"I'll show him," he exclaimed.
+
+As though they had been little children, McTeague set Frenna
+and the harness-maker aside, and strode out at the door like
+a raging elephant.  Heise stood rubbing his shoulder.
+
+"Might as well try to stop a locomotive," he muttered. "The
+man's made of iron."
+
+Meanwhile, McTeague went storming up the street toward the
+flat, wagging his head and grumbling to himself. Ah, Marcus
+would break his pipe, would he?  Ah, he was a zinc-plugger,
+was he? He'd show Marcus Schouler.  No one should make small
+of him.  He tramped up the stairs to Marcus's room.  The
+door was locked. The dentist put one enormous hand on the
+knob and pushed the door in, snapping the wood-work, tearing
+off the lock. Nobody--the room was dark and empty.  Never
+mind, Marcus would have to come home some time that night. 
+McTeague would go down and wait for him in his "Parlors."  
+He was bound to hear him as he came up the stairs.
+
+As McTeague reached his room he stumbled over, in the
+darkness, a big packing-box that stood in the hallway just
+outside his door.  Puzzled, he stepped over it, and lighting
+the gas in his room, dragged it inside and examined it.
+
+It was addressed to him.  What could it mean?  He was
+expecting nothing.  Never since he had first furnished his
+room had packing-cases been left for him in this fashion. 
+No mistake was possible.  There were his name and address
+unmistakably.  "Dr. McTeague, dentist--Polk Street, San
+Francisco, Cal.," and the red Wells Fargo tag.
+
+Seized with the joyful curiosity of an overgrown boy, he
+pried off the boards with the corner of his fireshovel.  The
+case was stuffed full of excelsior.  On the top lay an
+envelope addressed to him in Trina's handwriting.  He
+opened it and read, "For my dear Mac's birthday, from
+Trina;" and below, in a kind of post-script, "The man will
+be round to-morrow to put it in place."  McTeague tore away
+the excelsior.  Suddenly he uttered an exclamation.
+
+It was the Tooth--the famous golden molar with its huge
+prongs--his sign, his ambition, the one unrealized dream of
+his life; and it was French gilt, too, not the cheap German
+gilt that was no good.  Ah, what a dear little woman was
+this Trina, to keep so quiet, to remember his birthday!
+
+"Ain't she--ain't she just a--just a JEWEL," exclaimed
+McTeague under his breath, "a JEWEL--yes, just a
+JEWEL; that's the word."
+
+Very carefully he removed the rest of the excelsior, and
+lifting the ponderous Tooth from its box, set it upon the
+marble-top centre table.  How immense it looked in that
+little room!  The thing was tremendous, overpowering--the
+tooth of a gigantic fossil, golden and dazzling.  Beside it
+everything seemed dwarfed.  Even McTeague himself, big boned
+and enormous as he was, shrank and dwindled in the presence
+of the monster.  As for an instant he bore it in his hands,
+it was like a puny Gulliver struggling with the molar of
+some vast Brobdingnag.
+
+The dentist circled about that golden wonder, gasping with
+delight and stupefaction, touching it gingerly with his
+hands as if it were something sacred.  At every moment his
+thought returned to Trina.  No, never was there such a
+little woman as his--the very thing he wanted--how had she
+remembered?  And the money, where had that come from?  No
+one knew better than he how expensive were these signs; not
+another dentist on Polk Street could afford one.  Where,
+then, had Trina found the money?  It came out of her five
+thousand dollars, no doubt.
+
+But what a wonderful, beautiful tooth it was, to be sure,
+bright as a mirror, shining there in its coat of French
+gilt, as if with a light of its own!  No danger of that
+tooth turning black with the weather, as did the cheap
+German gilt impostures.  What would that other dentist, that
+poser, that rider of bicycles, that courser of
+greyhounds, say when he should see this marvellous molar run
+out from McTeague's bay window like a flag of defiance?  No
+doubt he would suffer veritable convulsions of envy; would
+be positively sick with jealousy.  If McTeague could only
+see his face at the moment!
+
+For a whole hour the dentist sat there in his little
+"Parlor," gazing ecstatically at his treasure, dazzled,
+supremely content.  The whole room took on a different
+aspect because of it.  The stone pug dog before the little
+stove reflected it in his protruding eyes; the canary woke
+and chittered feebly at this new gilt, so much brighter than
+the bars of its little prison. Lorenzo de' Medici, in the
+steel engraving, sitting in the heart of his court, seemed
+to ogle the thing out of the corner of one eye, while the
+brilliant colors of the unused rifle manufacturer's calendar
+seemed to fade and pale in the brilliance of this greater
+glory.
+
+At length, long after midnight, the dentist started to go to
+bed, undressing himself with his eyes still fixed on the
+great tooth.  All at once he heard Marcus Schouler's foot on
+the stairs; he started up with his fists clenched, but
+immediately dropped back upon the bed-lounge with a gesture
+of indifference.
+
+He was in no truculent state of mind now.  He could not
+reinstate himself in that mood of wrath wherein he had left
+the corner grocery.  The tooth had changed all that.  What
+was Marcus Schouler's hatred to him, who had Trina's
+affection? What did he care about a broken pipe now that he
+had the tooth? Let him go.  As Frenna said, he was not worth
+it.  He heard Marcus come out into the hall, shouting
+aggrievedly to anyone within sound of his voice:
+
+"An' now he breaks into my room--into my room, by damn!  How
+do I know how many things he's stolen? It's come to stealing
+from me, now, has it?"  He went into his room, banging his
+splintered door.
+
+McTeague looked upward at the ceiling, in the direction of
+the voice, muttering:
+
+"Ah, go to bed, you."
+
+He went to bed himself, turning out the gas, but leaving the
+window-curtains up so that he could see the tooth the
+last thing before he went to sleep and the first thing as he
+arose in the morning.
+
+But he was restless during the night.  Every now and then he
+was awakened by noises to which he had long since become
+accustomed.  Now it was the cackling of the geese in the
+deserted market across the street; now it was the stoppage
+of the cable, the sudden silence coming almost like a shock;
+and now it was the infuriated barking of the dogs in the
+back yard--Alec, the Irish setter, and the collie that
+belonged to the branch post-office raging at each other
+through the fence, snarling their endless hatred into each
+other's faces.  As often as he woke, McTeague turned and
+looked for the tooth, with a sudden suspicion that he had
+only that moment dreamed the whole business.  But he always
+found it--Trina's gift, his birthday from his little woman--
+a huge, vague bulk, looming there through the half darkness
+in the centre of the room, shining dimly out as if with some
+mysterious light of its own.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+
+Trina and McTeague were married on the first day of June, in
+the photographer's rooms that the dentist had rented.  All
+through May the Sieppe household had been turned upside
+down.  The little box of a house vibrated with excitement
+and confusion, for not only were the preparations for
+Trina's marriage to be made, but also the preliminaries were
+to be arranged for the hegira of the entire Sieppe family.
+
+They were to move to the southern part of the State the
+day after Trina's marriage, Mr. Sieppe having bought a third
+interest in an upholstering business in the suburbs of Los
+Angeles.  It was possible that Marcus Schouler would go with
+them.
+
+Not Stanley penetrating for the first time into the Dark
+Continent, not Napoleon leading his army across the Alps,
+was more weighted with responsibility, more burdened with
+care, more overcome with the sense of the importance of his
+undertaking, than was Mr. Sieppe during this period of
+preparation.  From dawn to dark, from dark to early dawn, he
+toiled and planned and fretted, organizing and reorganizing,
+projecting and devising. The trunks were lettered, A, B, and
+C, the packages and smaller bundles numbered.  Each member
+of the family had his especial duty to perform, his
+particular bundles to oversee.  Not a detail was forgotten--
+fares, prices, and tips were calculated to two places of
+decimals.  Even the amount of food that it would be
+necessary to carry for the black greyhound was determined.
+Mrs. Sieppe was to look after the lunch, "der gomisariat."  
+Mr. Sieppe would assume charge of the checks, the money, the
+tickets, and, of course, general supervision.  The twins
+would be under the command of Owgooste, who, in turn, would
+report for orders to his father.
+
+Day in and day out these minutiae were rehearsed.  The
+children were drilled in their parts with a military
+exactitude; obedience and punctuality became cardinal
+virtues.  The vast importance of the undertaking was
+insisted upon with scrupulous iteration.  It was a
+manoeuvre, an army changing its base of operations, a
+veritable tribal migration.
+
+On the other hand, Trina's little room was the centre around
+which revolved another and different order of things.  The
+dressmaker came and went, congratulatory visitors invaded
+the little front parlor, the chatter of unfamiliar voices
+resounded from the front steps; bonnet-boxes and yards of
+dress-goods littered the beds and chairs; wrapping paper,
+tissue paper, and bits of string strewed the floor; a pair
+of white satin slippers stood on a corner of the toilet
+table; lengths of white veiling, like a snow-flurry,
+buried the little work-table; and a mislaid box of
+artificial orange blossoms was finally discovered behind the
+bureau.
+
+The two systems of operation often clashed and tangled. Mrs.
+Sieppe was found by her harassed husband helping Trina with
+the waist of her gown when she should have been slicing cold
+chicken in the kitchen.  Mr. Sieppe packed his frock coat,
+which he would have to wear at the wedding, at the very
+bottom of "Trunk C."  The minister, who called to offer his
+congratulations and to make arrangements, was mistaken for
+the expressman.
+
+McTeague came and went furtively, dizzied and made uneasy by
+all this bustle.  He got in the way; he trod upon and tore
+breadths of silk; he tried to help carry the packing-boxes,
+and broke the hall gas fixture; he came in upon Trina and
+the dress-maker at an ill-timed moment, and retiring
+precipitately, overturned the piles of pictures stacked in
+the hall.
+
+There was an incessant going and coming at every moment of
+the day, a great calling up and down stairs, a shouting from
+room to room, an opening and shutting of doors, and an
+intermittent sound of hammering from the laundry, where Mr.
+Sieppe in his shirt sleeves labored among the packing-boxes. 
+The twins clattered about on the carpetless floors of the
+denuded rooms. Owgooste was smacked from hour to hour, and
+wept upon the front stairs; the dressmaker called over the
+banisters for a hot flatiron; expressmen tramped up and down
+the stairway.  Mrs. Sieppe stopped in the preparation of the
+lunches to call "Hoop, Hoop" to the greyhound, throwing
+lumps of coal.  The dog-wheel creaked, the front door bell
+rang, delivery wagons rumbled away, windows rattled--the
+little house was in a positive uproar.
+
+Almost every day of the week now Trina was obliged to run
+over to town and meet McTeague.  No more philandering over
+their lunch now-a-days.  It was business now.  They haunted
+the house-furnishing floors of the great department houses,
+inspecting and pricing ranges, hardware, china, and the
+like. They rented the photographer's rooms furnished, and
+fortunately only the kitchen and dining-room utensils had to
+be bought.
+
+The money for this as well as for her trousseau came
+out of Trina's five thousand dollars.  For it had been
+finally decided that two hundred dollars of this amount
+should be devoted to the establishment of the new household. 
+Now that Trina had made her great winning, Mr. Sieppe no
+longer saw the necessity of dowering her further, especially
+when he considered the enormous expense to which he would be
+put by the voyage of his own family.
+
+It had been a dreadful wrench for Trina to break in upon her
+precious five thousand.  She clung to this sum with a
+tenacity that was surprising; it had become for her a thing
+miraculous, a god-from-the-machine, suddenly descending upon
+the stage of her humble little life; she regarded it as
+something almost sacred and inviolable.  Never, never should
+a penny of it be spent. Before she could be induced to part
+with two hundred dollars of it, more than one scene had been
+enacted between her and her parents.
+
+Did Trina pay for the golden tooth out of this two hundred?
+Later on, the dentist often asked her about it, but Trina
+invariably laughed in his face, declaring that it was her
+secret.  McTeague never found out.
+
+One day during this period McTeague told Trina about his
+affair with Marcus.  Instantly she was aroused.
+
+"He threw his knife at you!  The coward!  He wouldn't of dared
+stand up to you like a man.  Oh, Mac, suppose he HAD hit
+you?"
+
+"Came within an inch of my head," put in McTeague, proudly.
+
+"Think of it!" she gasped; "and he wanted part of my money.
+Well, I do like his cheek; part of my five thousand!  Why,
+it's mine, every single penny of it. Marcus hasn't the least
+bit of right to it.  It's mine, mine.--I mean, it's ours,
+Mac, dear."
+
+The elder Sieppes, however, made excuses for Marcus. He had
+probably been drinking a good deal and didn't know what he
+was about.  He had a dreadful temper, anyhow.  Maybe he only
+wanted to scare McTeague.
+
+The week before the marriage the two men were reconciled. 
+Mrs. Sieppe brought them together in the front parlor
+of the B Street house.
+
+"Now, you two fellers, don't be dot foolish.  Schake hands
+und maig ut oop, soh."
+
+Marcus muttered an apology.  McTeague, miserably
+embarrassed, rolled his eyes about the room, murmuring,
+"That's all right--that's all right--that's all right."
+
+However, when it was proposed that Marcus should be
+McTeague's best man, he flashed out again with renewed
+violence.  Ah, no! ah, NO!  He'd make up with the
+dentist now that he was going away, but he'd be damned--yes,
+he would--before he'd be his best man.  That was rubbing it
+in.  Let him get Old Grannis.
+
+"I'm friends with um all right," vociferated Marcus, "but
+I'll not stand up with um.  I'll not be ANYBODY'S best
+man, I won't."
+
+The wedding was to be very quiet; Trina preferred it that
+way. McTeague would invite only Miss Baker and Heise the
+harness-maker.  The Sieppes sent cards to Selina, who was
+counted on to furnish the music; to Marcus, of course; and
+to Uncle Oelbermann.
+
+At last the great day, the first of June, arrived.  The
+Sieppes had packed their last box and had strapped the last
+trunk. Trina's two trunks had already been sent to her new
+home--the remodelled photographer's rooms. The B Street
+house was deserted; the whole family came over to the city
+on the last day of May and stopped over night at one of the
+cheap downtown hotels.  Trina would be married the following
+evening, and immediately after the wedding supper the
+Sieppes would leave for the South.
+
+McTeague spent the day in a fever of agitation, frightened
+out of his wits each time that Old Grannis left his elbow.
+
+Old Grannis was delighted beyond measure at the prospect of
+acting the part of best man in the ceremony.  This wedding
+in which he was to figure filled his mind with vague ideas
+and half-formed thoughts.  He found himself continually
+wondering what Miss Baker would think of it.  During all
+that day he was in a reflective mood.
+
+"Marriage is a--a noble institution, is it not, Doctor?" he
+observed to McTeague.  "The--the foundation of society.
+It is not good that man should be alone.  No, no," he added,
+pensively, "it is not good."
+
+"Huh?  Yes, yes," McTeague answered, his eyes in the air,
+hardly hearing him.  "Do you think the rooms are all right? 
+Let's go in and look at them again."
+
+They went down the hall to where the new rooms were
+situated, and the dentist inspected them for the twentieth
+time.
+
+The rooms were three in number--first, the sitting-room,
+which was also the dining-room; then the bedroom, and back
+of this the tiny kitchen.
+
+The sitting-room was particularly charming.  Clean matting
+covered the floor, and two or three bright colored rugs were
+scattered here and there.  The backs of the chairs were hung
+with knitted worsted tidies, very gay.  The bay window
+should have been occupied by Trina's sewing machine, but
+this had been moved to the other side of the room to give
+place to a little black walnut table with spiral legs,
+before which the pair were to be married.  In one corner
+stood the parlor melodeon, a family possession of the
+Sieppes, but given now to Trina as one of her parents'
+wedding presents.  Three pictures hung upon the walls.  Two
+were companion pieces.  One of these represented a little
+boy wearing huge spectacles and trying to smoke an enormous
+pipe.  This was called "I'm Grandpa," the title being
+printed in large black letters; the companion picture was
+entitled "I'm Grandma," a little girl in cap and "specs,"
+wearing mitts, and knitting.  These pictures were hung on
+either side of the mantelpiece.  The other picture was quite
+an affair, very large and striking.  It was a colored
+lithograph of two little golden-haired girls in their night-
+gowns.  They were kneeling down and saying their prayers;
+their eyes--very large and very blue--rolled upward.  This
+picture had for name, "Faith," and was bordered with a red
+plush mat and a frame of imitation beaten brass.
+
+A door hung with chenille portieres--a bargain at two
+dollars and a half--admitted one to the bedroom.  The
+bedroom could boast a carpet, three-ply ingrain, the design
+being bunches of red and green flowers in yellow
+baskets on a white ground.  The wall-paper was admirable--
+hundreds and hundreds of tiny Japanese mandarins, all
+identically alike, helping hundreds of almond-eyed ladies
+into hundreds of impossible junks, while hundreds of bamboo
+palms overshadowed the pair, and hundreds of long-legged
+storks trailed contemptuously away from the scene. This room
+was prolific in pictures.  Most of them were framed colored
+prints from Christmas editions of the London "Graphic" and
+"Illustrated News," the subject of each picture inevitably
+involving very alert fox terriers and very pretty moon-faced
+little girls.
+
+Back of the bedroom was the kitchen, a creation of Trina's,
+a dream of a kitchen, with its range, its porcelain-lined
+sink, its copper boiler, and its overpowering array of
+flashing tinware.  Everything was new; everything was
+complete.
+
+Maria Macapa and a waiter from one of the restaurants in the
+street were to prepare the wedding supper here.  Maria had
+already put in an appearance.  The fire was crackling in the
+new stove, that smoked badly; a smell of cooking was in the
+air. She drove McTeague and Old Grannis from the room with
+great gestures of her bare arms.
+
+This kitchen was the only one of the three rooms they had
+been obliged to furnish throughout.  Most of the sitting-
+room and bedroom furniture went with the suite; a few pieces
+they had bought; the remainder Trina had brought over from
+the B Street house.
+
+The presents had been set out on the extension table in the
+sitting-room.  Besides the parlor melodeon, Trina's parents
+had given her an ice-water set, and a carving knife and fork
+with elk-horn handles.  Selina had painted a view of the
+Golden Gate upon a polished slice of redwood that answered
+the purposes of a paper weight.  Marcus Schouler--after
+impressing upon Trina that his gift was to HER, and not
+to McTeague--had sent a chatelaine watch of German silver;
+Uncle Oelbermann's present, however, had been awaited with a
+good deal of curiosity.  What would he send?  He was very
+rich; in a sense Trina was his protege.  A couple of
+days before that upon which the wedding was to take
+place, two boxes arrived with his card.  Trina and
+McTeague, assisted by Old Grannis, had opened them. The
+first was a box of all sorts of toys.
+
+"But what--what--I don't make it out," McTeague had
+exclaimed. "Why should he send us toys?  We have no need of
+toys."  Scarlet to her hair, Trina dropped into a chair and
+laughed till she cried behind her handkerchief.
+
+"We've no use of toys," muttered McTeague, looking at her in
+perplexity.  Old Grannis smiled discreetly, raising a
+tremulous hand to his chin.
+
+The other box was heavy, bound with withes at the edges, the
+letters and stamps burnt in.
+
+"I think--I really think it's champagne," said Old Grannis
+in a whisper.  So it was.  A full case of Monopole.  What a
+wonder!  None of them had seen the like before.  Ah, this
+Uncle Oelbermann!  That's what it was to be rich.  Not one
+of the other presents produced so deep an impression as
+this.
+
+After Old Grannis and the dentist had gone through the
+rooms, giving a last look around to see that everything was
+ready, they returned to McTeague's "Parlors."  At the door
+Old Grannis excused himself.
+
+At four o'clock McTeague began to dress, shaving himself
+first before the hand-glass that was hung against the
+woodwork of the bay window.  While he shaved he sang with
+strange inappropriateness:
+
+
+     "No one to love, none to Caress,
+      Left all alone in this world's wilderness."
+
+
+But as he stood before the mirror, intent upon his shaving,
+there came a roll of wheels over the cobbles in front of the
+house.  He rushed to the window.  Trina had arrived with her
+father and mother.  He saw her get out, and as she glanced
+upward at his window, their eyes met.
+
+Ah, there she was.  There she was, his little woman, looking
+up at him, her adorable little chin thrust upward with that
+familiar movement of innocence and confidence.  The
+dentist saw again, as if for the first time, her small, pale
+face looking out from beneath her royal tiara of black hair;
+he saw again her long, narrow blue eyes; her lips, nose, and
+tiny ears, pale and bloodless, and suggestive of anaemia, as
+if all the vitality that should have lent them color had
+been sucked up into the strands and coils of that wonderful
+hair.
+
+As their eyes met they waved their hands gayly to each
+other; then McTeague heard Trina and her mother come up the
+stairs and go into the bedroom of the photographer's suite,
+where Trina was to dress.
+
+No, no; surely there could be no longer any hesitation. He
+knew that he loved her.  What was the matter with him, that
+he should have doubted it for an instant?  The great
+difficulty was that she was too good, too adorable, too
+sweet, too delicate for him, who was so huge, so clumsy, so
+brutal.
+
+There was a knock at the door.  It was Old Grannis.  He was
+dressed in his one black suit of broadcloth, much wrinkled;
+his hair was carefully brushed over his bald forehead.
+
+"Miss Trina has come," he announced, "and the minister. You
+have an hour yet."
+
+The dentist finished dressing.  He wore a suit bought for
+the occasion--a ready made "Prince Albert" coat too short in
+the sleeves, striped "blue" trousers, and new patent leather
+shoes--veritable instruments of torture.  Around his collar
+was a wonderful necktie that Trina had given him; it was of
+salmon-pink satin; in its centre Selina had painted a knot
+of blue forget-me-nots.
+
+At length, after an interminable period of waiting, Mr.
+Sieppe appeared at the door.
+
+"Are you reatty?" he asked in a sepulchral whisper.  "Gome,
+den."  It was like King Charles summoned to execution.  Mr.
+Sieppe preceded them into the hall, moving at a funereal
+pace. He paused.  Suddenly, in the direction of the sitting-
+room, came the strains of the parlor melodeon.  Mr. Sieppe
+flung his arm in the air.
+
+"Vowaarts!" he cried.
+
+He left them at the door of the sitting-room, he
+himself going into the bedroom where Trina was waiting,
+entering by the hall door.  He was in a tremendous state of
+nervous tension, fearful lest something should go wrong.  He
+had employed the period of waiting in going through his part
+for the fiftieth time, repeating what he had to say in a low
+voice.  He had even made chalk marks on the matting in the
+places where he was to take positions.
+
+The dentist and Old Grannis entered the sitting-room; the
+minister stood behind the little table in the bay window,
+holding a book, one finger marking the place; he was rigid,
+erect, impassive.  On either side of him, in a semi-circle,
+stood the invited guests.  A little pock-marked gentleman in
+glasses, no doubt the famous Uncle Oelbermann; Miss Baker,
+in her black grenadine, false curls, and coral brooch;
+Marcus Schouler, his arms folded, his brows bent, grand and
+gloomy; Heise the harness-maker, in yellow gloves, intently
+studying the pattern of the matting; and Owgooste, in his
+Fauntleroy "costume," stupefied and a little frightened,
+rolling his eyes from face to face. Selina sat at the parlor
+melodeon, fingering the keys, her glance wandering to the
+chenille portieres.  She stopped playing as McTeague and Old
+Grannis entered and took their places.  A profound silence
+ensued.  Uncle Oelbermann's shirt front could be heard
+creaking as he breathed.  The most solemn expression
+pervaded every face.
+
+All at once the portieres were shaken violently.  It was a
+signal.  Selina pulled open the stops and swung into the
+wedding march.
+
+Trina entered.  She was dressed in white silk, a crown of
+orange blossoms was around her swarthy hair--dressed high
+for the first time--her veil reached to the floor.  Her face
+was pink, but otherwise she was calm.  She looked quietly
+around the room as she crossed it, until her glance rested
+on McTeague, smiling at him then very prettily and with
+perfect self-possession.
+
+She was on her father's arm.  The twins, dressed exactly
+alike, walked in front, each carrying an enormous bouquet of
+cut flowers in a "lace-paper" holder.  Mrs. Sieppe followed
+in the rear.  She was crying; her handkerchief was rolled
+into a wad. From time to time she looked at the train
+of Trina's dress through her tears.  Mr. Sieppe marched his
+daughter to the exact middle of the floor, wheeled at right
+angles, and brought her up to the minister.  He stepped back
+three paces, and stood planted upon one of his chalk marks,
+his face glistening with perspiration.
+
+Then Trina and the dentist were married.  The guests stood
+in constrained attitudes, looking furtively out of the
+corners of their eyes.  Mr. Sieppe never moved a muscle;
+Mrs. Sieppe cried into her handkerchief all the time.  At
+the melodeon Selina played "Call Me Thine Own," very softly,
+the tremulo stop pulled out.  She looked over her shoulder
+from time to time.  Between the pauses of the music one
+could hear the low tones of the minister, the responses of
+the participants, and the suppressed sounds of Mrs. Sieppe's
+weeping.  Outside the noises of the street rose to the
+windows in muffled undertones, a cable car rumbled past, a
+newsboy went by chanting the evening papers; from somewhere
+in the building itself came a persistent noise of sawing.
+
+Trina and McTeague knelt.  The dentist's knees thudded on
+the floor and he presented to view the soles of his shoes,
+painfully new and unworn, the leather still yellow, the
+brass nail heads still glittering.  Trina sank at his side
+very gracefully, setting her dress and train with a little
+gesture of her free hand.  The company bowed their heads,
+Mr. Sieppe shutting his eyes tight.  But Mrs. Sieppe took
+advantage of the moment to stop crying and make furtive
+gestures towards Owgooste, signing him to pull down his
+coat.  But Owgooste gave no heed; his eyes were starting
+from their sockets, his chin had dropped upon his lace
+collar, and his head turned vaguely from side to side with a
+continued and maniacal motion.
+
+All at once the ceremony was over before any one expected
+it. The guests kept their positions for a moment, eyeing one
+another, each fearing to make the first move, not quite
+certain as to whether or not everything were finished.  But
+the couple faced the room, Trina throwing back her veil. 
+She--perhaps McTeague as well--felt that there was a certain
+inadequateness about the ceremony.  Was that all there was
+to it?  Did just those few muttered phrases make them
+man and wife?  It had been over in a few moments, but it had
+bound them for life.  Had not something been left out?  Was
+not the whole affair cursory, superficial?  It was
+disappointing.
+
+But Trina had no time to dwell upon this.  Marcus Schouler,
+in the manner of a man of the world, who knew how to act in
+every situation, stepped forward and, even before Mr. or
+Mrs. Sieppe, took Trina's hand.
+
+"Let me be the first to congratulate Mrs. McTeague," he
+said, feeling very noble and heroic.  The strain of the
+previous moments was relaxed immediately, the guests crowded
+around the pair, shaking hands--a babel of talk arose.
+
+"Owgooste, WILL you pull down your goat, den?"
+
+"Well, my dear, now you're married and happy.  When I first
+saw you two together, I said, 'What a pair!'  We're to be
+neighbors now; you must come up and see me very often and
+we'll have tea together."
+
+"Did you hear that sawing going on all the time?  I declare
+it regularly got on my nerves."
+
+Trina kissed her father and mother, crying a little herself
+as she saw the tears in Mrs. Sieppe's eyes.
+
+Marcus came forward a second time, and, with an air of great
+gravity, kissed his cousin upon the forehead.  Heise was
+introduced to Trina and Uncle Oelbermann to the dentist.
+
+For upwards of half an hour the guests stood about in
+groups, filling the little sitting-room with a great chatter
+of talk. Then it was time to make ready for supper.
+
+This was a tremendous task, in which nearly all the guests
+were obliged to assist.  The sitting-room was transformed
+into a dining-room.  The presents were removed from the
+extension table and the table drawn out to its full length. 
+The cloth was laid, the chairs--rented from the dancing
+academy hard by--drawn up, the dishes set out, and the two
+bouquets of cut flowers taken from the twins under their
+shrill protests, and "arranged" in vases at either end of
+the table.
+
+There was a great coming and going between the kitchen
+and the sitting-room.  Trina, who was allowed to do
+nothing, sat in the bay window and fretted, calling to her
+mother from time to time:
+
+"The napkins are in the right-hand drawer of the pantry."
+
+"Yes, yes, I got um.  Where do you geep der zoup blates?"
+
+"The soup plates are here already."
+
+"Say, Cousin Trina, is there a corkscrew?  What is home
+without a corkscrew?"
+
+"In the kitchen-table drawer, in the left-hand corner."
+
+"Are these the forks you want to use, Mrs. McTeague?"
+
+"No, no, there's some silver forks.  Mamma knows where."
+
+They were all very gay, laughing over their mistakes,
+getting in one another's way, rushing into the sitting-room,
+their hands full of plates or knives or glasses, and darting
+out again after more.  Marcus and Mr. Sieppe took their
+coats off.  Old Grannis and Miss Baker passed each other in
+the hall in a constrained silence, her grenadine brushing
+against the elbow of his wrinkled frock coat.  Uncle
+Oelbermann superintended Heise opening the case of champagne
+with the gravity of a magistrate. Owgooste was assigned the
+task of filling the new salt and pepper canisters of red and
+blue glass.
+
+In a wonderfully short time everything was ready. Marcus
+Schouler resumed his coat, wiping his forehead, and
+remarking:
+
+"I tell you, I've been doing CHORES for MY board."
+
+"To der table!" commanded Mr. Sieppe.
+
+The company sat down with a great clatter, Trina at the
+foot, the dentist at the head, the others arranged
+themselves in haphazard fashion.  But it happened that
+Marcus Schouler crowded into the seat beside Selina, towards
+which Old Grannis was directing himself.  There was but one
+other chair vacant, and that at the side of Miss Baker.  Old
+Grannis hesitated, putting his hand to his chin.  However,
+there was no escape.  In great trepidation he sat down
+beside the retired dressmaker. Neither of them spoke.  Old
+Grannis dared not move, but sat rigid, his eyes riveted on
+his empty soup plate.
+
+All at once there was a report like a pistol.  The men
+started in their places.  Mrs. Sieppe uttered a muffled
+shriek. The waiter from the cheap restaurant, hired as
+Maria's assistant, rose from a bending posture, a champagne
+bottle frothing in his hand; he was grinning from ear to
+ear.
+
+"Don't get scairt," he said, reassuringly, "it ain't
+loaded."
+
+When all their glasses had been filled, Marcus proposed the
+health of the bride, "standing up."  The guests rose and
+drank. Hardly one of them had ever tasted champagne before. 
+The moment's silence after the toast was broken by McTeague
+exclaiming with a long breath of satisfaction: "That's the
+best beer I ever drank."
+
+There was a roar of laughter.  Especially was Marcus tickled
+over the dentist's blunder; he went off in a very spasm of
+mirth, banging the table with his fist, laughing until his
+eyes watered.  All through the meal he kept breaking out
+into cackling imitations of McTeague's words: "That's the
+best BEER I ever drank. Oh, Lord, ain't that a break!"
+
+What a wonderful supper that was!  There was oyster soup;
+there were sea bass and barracuda; there was a gigantic
+roast goose stuffed with chestnuts; there were egg-plant and
+sweet potatoes--Miss Baker called them "yams."  There was
+calf's head in oil, over which Mr. Sieppe went into
+ecstasies; there was lobster salad; there were rice pudding,
+and strawberry ice cream, and wine jelly, and stewed prunes,
+and cocoanuts, and mixed nuts, and raisins, and fruit, and
+tea, and coffee, and mineral waters, and lemonade.
+
+For two hours the guests ate; their faces red, their elbows
+wide, the perspiration beading their foreheads.  All around
+the table one saw the same incessant movement of jaws and
+heard the same uninterrupted sound of chewing.  Three times
+Heise passed his plate for more roast goose.  Mr. Sieppe
+devoured the calf's head with long breaths of contentment;
+McTeague ate for the sake of eating, without choice;
+everything within reach of his hands found its way into his
+enormous mouth.
+
+There was but little conversation, and that only of the
+food; one exchanged opinions with one's neighbor as to the
+soup, the egg-plant, or the stewed prunes.  Soon the
+room became very warm, a faint moisture appeared upon the
+windows, the air was heavy with the smell of cooked food. 
+At every moment Trina or Mrs. Sieppe urged some one of the
+company to have his or her plate refilled.  They were
+constantly employed in dishing potatoes or carving the goose
+or ladling gravy.   The hired waiter circled around the
+room, his limp napkin over his arm, his hands full of plates
+and dishes.  He was a great joker; he had names of his own
+for different articles of food, that sent gales of laughter
+around the table.  When he spoke of a bunch of parsley as
+"scenery," Heise all but strangled himself over a mouthful
+of potato.  Out in the kitchen Maria Macapa did the work of
+three, her face scarlet, her sleeves rolled up; every now
+and then she uttered shrill but unintelligible outcries,
+supposedly addressed to the waiter.
+
+"Uncle Oelbermann," said Trina, "let me give you another
+helping of prunes."
+
+The Sieppes paid great deference to Uncle Oelbermann, as
+indeed did the whole company.  Even Marcus Schouler lowered
+his voice when he addressed him.  At the beginning of the
+meal he had nudged the harness-maker and had whispered
+behind his hand, nodding his head toward the wholesale toy
+dealer, "Got thirty thousand dollars in the bank; has, for a
+fact."
+
+"Don't have much to say," observed Heise.
+
+"No, no.  That's his way; never opens his face."
+
+As the evening wore on, the gas and two lamps were lit.  The
+company were still eating.  The men, gorged with food, had
+unbuttoned their vests.  McTeague's cheeks were distended,
+his eyes wide, his huge, salient jaw moved with a machine-
+like regularity; at intervals he drew a series of short
+breaths through his nose.  Mrs. Sieppe wiped her forehead
+with her napkin.
+
+"Hey, dere, poy, gif me some more oaf dat--what you call--
+'bubble-water.'"
+
+That was how the waiter had spoken of the champagne--
+"bubble-water."  The guests had shouted applause, "Outa
+sight."  He was a heavy josher was that waiter.
+
+Bottle after bottle was opened, the women stopping
+their ears as the corks were drawn.  All of a sudden the
+dentist uttered an exclamation, clapping his hand to his
+nose, his face twisting sharply.
+
+"Mac, what is it?" cried Trina in alarm.
+
+"That champagne came to my nose," he cried, his eyes
+watering. "It stings like everything."
+
+"Great BEER, ain't ut?" shouted Marcus.
+
+"Now, Mark," remonstrated Trina in a low voice.  "Now, Mark,
+you just shut up; that isn't funny any more.  I don't want
+you should make fun of Mac.  He called it beer on purpose. 
+I guess HE knows."
+
+Throughout the meal old Miss Baker had occupied herself
+largely with Owgooste and the twins, who had been given a
+table by themselves--the black walnut table before which the
+ceremony had taken place.  The little dressmaker was
+continually turning about in her place, inquiring of the
+children if they wanted for anything; inquiries they rarely
+answered other than by stare, fixed, ox-like,
+expressionless.
+
+Suddenly the little dressmaker turned to Old Grannis and
+exclaimed:
+
+"I'm so very fond of little children."
+
+"Yes, yes, they're very interesting.  I'm very fond of them,
+too."
+
+The next instant both of the old people were overwhelmed
+with confusion. What!  They had spoken to each other after
+all these years of silence; they had for the first time
+addressed remarks to each other.
+
+The old dressmaker was in a torment of embarrassment.  How
+was it she had come to speak?  She had neither planned nor
+wished it.  Suddenly the words had escaped her, he had
+answered, and it was all over--over before they knew it.
+
+Old Grannis's fingers trembled on the table ledge, his heart
+beat heavily, his breath fell short.  He had actually talked
+to the little dressmaker.  That possibility to which he had
+looked forward, it seemed to him for years--that
+companionship, that intimacy with his fellow-lodger,
+that delightful acquaintance which was only to ripen at some
+far distant time, he could not exactly say when--behold, it
+had suddenly come to a head, here in this over-crowded,
+over-heated room, in the midst of all this feeding,
+surrounded by odors of hot dishes, accompanied by the sounds
+of incessant mastication.  How different he had imagined it
+would be!  They were to be alone--he and Miss Baker--in the
+evening somewhere, withdrawn from the world, very quiet,
+very calm and peaceful.  Their talk was to be of their
+lives, their lost illusions, not of other people's children.
+
+The two old people did not speak again.  They sat there side
+by side, nearer than they had ever been before, motionless,
+abstracted; their thoughts far away from that scene of
+feasting.  They were thinking of each other and they were
+conscious of it.  Timid, with the timidity of their second
+childhood, constrained and embarrassed by each other's
+presence, they were, nevertheless, in a little Elysium of
+their own creating.  They walked hand in hand in a delicious
+garden where it was always autumn; together and alone they
+entered upon the long retarded romance of their commonplace
+and uneventful lives.
+
+At last that great supper was over, everything had been
+eaten; the enormous roast goose had dwindled to a very
+skeleton.  Mr. Sieppe had reduced the calf's head to a mere
+skull; a row of empty champagne bottles--"dead soldiers," as
+the facetious waiter had called them--lined the mantelpiece. 
+Nothing of the stewed prunes remained but the juice, which
+was given to Owgooste and the twins.  The platters were as
+clean as if they had been washed; crumbs of bread, potato
+parings, nutshells, and bits of cake littered the table;
+coffee and ice-cream stains and spots of congealed gravy
+marked the position of each plate.  It was a devastation, a
+pillage; the table presented the appearance of an abandoned
+battlefield.
+
+"Ouf," cried Mrs. Sieppe, pushing back, "I haf eatun und
+eatun, ach, Gott, how I haf eatun!"
+
+"Ah, dot kaf's het," murmured her husband, passing his
+tongue over his lips.
+
+The facetious waiter had disappeared.  He and Maria
+Macapa foregathered in the kitchen.  They drew up to the
+washboard of the sink, feasting off the remnants of the
+supper, slices of goose, the remains of the lobster salad,
+and half a bottle of champagne.  They were obliged to drink
+the latter from teacups.
+
+"Here's how," said the waiter gallantly, as he raised his
+tea-cup, bowing to Maria across the sink.  "Hark," he added,
+"they're singing inside."
+
+The company had left the table and had assembled about the
+melodeon, where Selina was seated.  At first they attempted
+some of the popular songs of the day, but were obliged to
+give over as none of them knew any of the words beyond the
+first line of the chorus.  Finally they pitched upon
+"Nearer, My God, to Thee," as the only song which they all
+knew.  Selina sang the "alto," very much off the key; Marcus
+intoned the bass, scowling fiercely, his chin drawn into his
+collar. They sang in very slow time.  The song became a
+dirge, a lamentable, prolonged wail of distress:
+
+
+     "Nee-rah, my Gahd, to Thee,
+      Nee-rah to Thee-ah."
+
+
+At the end of the song, Uncle Oelbermann put on his hat
+without a word of warning.  Instantly there was a hush. The
+guests rose.
+
+"Not going so soon, Uncle Oelbermann?" protested Trina,
+politely.  He only nodded.  Marcus sprang forward to help
+him with his overcoat.  Mr. Sieppe came up and the two men
+shook hands.
+
+Then Uncle Oelbermann delivered himself of an oracular
+phrase. No doubt he had been meditating it during the
+supper. Addressing Mr. Sieppe, he said:
+
+"You have not lost a daughter, but have gained a son."
+
+These were the only words he had spoken the entire evening. 
+He departed; the company was profoundly impressed.
+
+About twenty minutes later, when Marcus Schouler was
+entertaining the guests by eating almonds, shells and
+all, Mr. Sieppe started to his feet, watch in hand.
+
+"Haf-bast elevun," he shouted.  "Attention!  Der dime haf
+arrive, shtop eferyting.  We depart."
+
+This was a signal for tremendous confusion.  Mr. Sieppe
+immediately threw off his previous air of relaxation, the
+calf's head was forgotten, he was once again the leader of
+vast enterprises.
+
+"To me, to me," he cried.  "Mommer, der tervins, Owgooste."  
+He marshalled his tribe together, with tremendous commanding
+gestures.  The sleeping twins were suddenly shaken into a
+dazed consciousness; Owgooste, whom the almond-eating of
+Marcus Schouler had petrified with admiration, was smacked
+to a realization of his surroundings.
+
+Old Grannis, with a certain delicacy that was one of his
+characteristics, felt instinctively that the guests--the
+mere outsiders--should depart before the family began its
+leave-taking of Trina.  He withdrew unobtrusively, after a
+hasty good-night to the bride and groom.  The rest followed
+almost immediately.
+
+"Well, Mr. Sieppe," exclaimed Marcus, "we won't see each
+other for some time."  Marcus had given up his first
+intention of joining in the Sieppe migration.  He spoke in a
+large way of certain affairs that would keep him in San
+Francisco till the fall.  Of late he had entertained
+ambitions of a ranch life, he would breed cattle, he had a
+little money and was only looking for some one "to go in
+with."  He dreamed of a cowboy's life and saw himself in an
+entrancing vision involving silver spurs and untamed
+bronchos.  He told himself that Trina had cast him off, that
+his best friend had "played him for a sucker," that the
+"proper caper" was to withdraw from the world entirely.
+
+"If you hear of anybody down there," he went on, speaking to
+Mr. Sieppe, "that wants to go in for ranching, why just let
+me know."
+
+"Soh, soh," answered Mr. Sieppe abstractedly, peering about
+for Owgooste's cap.
+
+Marcus bade the Sieppes farewell.  He and Heise went out
+together.  One heard them, as they descended the
+stairs, discussing the possibility of Frenna's place being
+still open.
+
+Then Miss Baker departed after kissing Trina on both cheeks.
+Selina went with her.  There was only the family left.
+
+Trina watched them go, one by one, with an increasing
+feeling of uneasiness and vague apprehension.  Soon they
+would all be gone.
+
+"Well, Trina," exclaimed Mr. Sieppe, "goot-py; perhaps you
+gome visit us somedime."
+
+Mrs. Sieppe began crying again.
+
+"Ach, Trina, ven shall I efer see you again?"
+
+Tears came to Trina's eyes in spite of herself.  She put her
+arms around her mother.
+
+"Oh, sometime, sometime," she cried.  The twins and Owgooste
+clung to Trina's skirts, fretting and whimpering.
+
+McTeague was miserable.  He stood apart from the group, in a
+corner.  None of them seemed to think of him; he was not of
+them.
+
+"Write to me very often, mamma, and tell me about
+everything--about August and the twins."
+
+"It is dime," cried Mr. Sieppe, nervously.  "Goot-py, Trina.
+Mommer, Owgooste, say goot-py, den we must go.  Goot-py,
+Trina."  He kissed her.  Owgooste and the twins were lifted
+up.  "Gome, gome," insisted Mr. Sieppe, moving toward the
+door.
+
+"Goot-py, Trina," exclaimed Mrs. Sieppe, crying harder than
+ever.  "Doktor--where is der doktor--Doktor, pe goot to her,
+eh? pe vairy goot, eh, won't you?  Zum day, Dokter, you vill
+haf a daughter, den you know berhaps how I feel, yes."
+
+They were standing at the door by this time.  Mr. Sieppe,
+half way down the stairs, kept calling "Gome, gome, we miss
+der drain."
+
+Mrs. Sieppe released Trina and started down the hall, the
+twins and Owgooste following.  Trina stood in the doorway,
+looking after them through her tears.  They were going,
+going.  When would she ever see them again?  She was to be
+left alone with this man to whom she had just been married. 
+A sudden vague terror seized her; she left McTeague and
+ran down the hall and caught her mother around the neck.
+
+"I don't WANT you to go," she whispered in her mother's
+ear, sobbing.  "Oh, mamma, I--I'm 'fraid."
+
+"Ach, Trina, you preak my heart.  Don't gry, poor leetle
+girl."  She rocked Trina in her arms as though she were a
+child again. "Poor leetle scairt girl, don' gry--soh--soh--
+soh, dere's nuttun to pe 'fraid oaf.  Dere, go to your
+hoasban'.  Listen, popper's galling again; go den; goot-by."
+
+She loosened Trina's arms and started down the stairs. Trina
+leaned over the banisters, straining her eyes after her
+mother.
+
+"What is ut, Trina?"
+
+"Oh, good-by, good-by."
+
+"Gome, gome, we miss der drain."
+
+"Mamma, oh, mamma!"
+
+"What is ut, Trina?"
+
+"Good-by."
+
+"Goot-py, leetle daughter."
+
+"Good-by, good-by, good-by."
+
+The street door closed.  The silence was profound.
+
+For another moment Trina stood leaning over the banisters,
+looking down into the empty stairway.  It was dark.  There
+was nobody.  They--her father, her mother, the children--had
+left her, left her alone.  She faced about toward the rooms
+--faced her husband, faced her new home, the new life that
+was to begin now.
+
+The hall was empty and deserted.  The great flat around her
+seemed new and huge and strange; she felt horribly alone. 
+Even Maria and the hired waiter were gone.  On one of the
+floors above she heard a baby crying.  She stood there an
+instant in the dark hall, in her wedding finery, looking
+about her, listening.  From the open door of the sitting-
+room streamed a gold bar of light.
+
+She went down the hall, by the open door of the sitting-
+room, going on toward the hall door of the bedroom.
+
+As she softly passed the sitting-room she glanced hastily
+in. The lamps and the gas were burning brightly, the chairs
+were pushed back from the table just as the guests had left
+them, and the table itself, abandoned, deserted,
+presented to view the vague confusion of its dishes, its
+knives and forks, its empty platters and crumpled napkins. 
+The dentist sat there leaning on his elbows, his back toward
+her; against the white blur of the table he looked colossal. 
+Above his giant shoulders rose his thick, red neck and mane
+of yellow hair.  The light shone pink through the gristle of
+his enormous ears.
+
+Trina entered the bedroom, closing the door after her.  At
+the sound, she heard McTeague start and rise.
+
+"Is that you, Trina?"
+
+She did not answer; but paused in the middle of the room,
+holding her breath, trembling.
+
+The dentist crossed the outside room, parted the chenille
+portieres, and came in.  He came toward her quickly, making
+as if to take her in his arms.  His eyes were alight.
+
+"No, no," cried Trina, shrinking from him.  Suddenly seized
+with the fear of him--the intuitive feminine fear of the
+male--her whole being quailed before him. She was terrified
+at his huge, square-cut head; his powerful, salient jaw; his
+huge, red hands; his enormous, resistless strength.
+
+"No, no--I'm afraid," she cried, drawing back from him to
+the other side of the room.
+
+"Afraid?" answered the dentist in perplexity.  "What are you
+afraid of, Trina?  I'm not going to hurt you.  What are you
+afraid of?"
+
+What, indeed, was Trina afraid of?  She could not tell.  But
+what did she know of McTeague, after all?  Who was this man
+that had come into her life, who had taken her from her home
+and from her parents, and with whom she was now left alone
+here in this strange, vast flat?
+
+"Oh, I'm afraid.  I'm afraid," she cried.
+
+McTeague came nearer, sat down beside her and put one arm
+around her.
+
+"What are you afraid of, Trina?" he said, reassuringly. "I
+don't want to frighten you."
+
+She looked at him wildly, her adorable little chin
+quivering, the tears brimming in her narrow blue eyes.
+Then her glance took on a certain intentness, and she peered
+curiously into his face, saying almost in a whisper:
+
+"I'm afraid of YOU."
+
+But the dentist did not heed her.  An immense joy seized
+upon him--the joy of possession.  Trina was his very own
+now.  She lay there in the hollow of his arm, helpless and
+very pretty.
+
+Those instincts that in him were so close to the surface
+suddenly leaped to life, shouting and clamoring, not to be
+resisted.  He loved her.  Ah, did he not love her?  The
+smell of her hair, of her neck, rose to him.
+
+Suddenly he caught her in both his huge arms, crushing down
+her struggle with his immense strength, kissing her full
+upon the mouth.  Then her great love for McTeague suddenly
+flashed up in Trina's breast; she gave up to him as she had
+done before, yielding all at once to that strange desire of
+being conquered and subdued.  She clung to him, her hands
+clasped behind his neck, whispering in his ear:
+
+"Oh, you must be good to me--very, very good to me, dear--
+for you're all that I have in the world now."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+
+That summer passed, then the winter.  The wet season began
+in the last days of September and continued all through
+October, November, and December.  At long intervals would
+come a week of perfect days, the sky without a cloud, the
+air motionless, but touched with a certain nimbleness, a
+faint effervescence that was exhilarating.  Then,
+without warning, during a night when a south wind blew, a
+gray scroll of cloud would unroll and hang high over the
+city, and the rain would come pattering down again, at first
+in scattered showers, then in an uninterrupted drizzle.
+
+All day long Trina sat in the bay window of the sitting-room
+that commanded a view of a small section of Polk Street.  As
+often as she raised her head she could see the big market, a
+confectionery store, a bell-hanger's shop, and, farther on,
+above the roofs, the glass skylights and water tanks of the
+big public baths.  In the nearer foreground ran the street
+itself; the cable cars trundled up and down, thumping
+heavily over the joints of the rails; market carts by the
+score came and went, driven at a great rate by preoccupied
+young men in their shirt sleeves, with pencils behind their
+ears, or by reckless boys in blood-stained butcher's aprons. 
+Upon the sidewalks the little world of Polk Street swarmed
+and jostled through its daily round of life.  On fine days
+the great ladies from the avenue, one block above, invaded
+the street, appearing before the butcher stalls, intent upon
+their day's marketing.  On rainy days their servants--the
+Chinese cooks or the second girls--took their places.  These
+servants gave themselves great airs, carrying their big
+cotton umbrellas as they had seen their mistresses carry
+their parasols, and haggling in supercilious fashion with
+the market men, their chins in the air.
+
+The rain persisted.  Everything in the range of Trina's
+vision, from the tarpaulins on the market-cart horses to the
+panes of glass in the roof of the public baths, looked
+glazed and varnished.  The asphalt of the sidewalks shone
+like the surface of a patent leather boot; every hollow in
+the street held its little puddle, that winked like an eye
+each time a drop of rain struck into it.
+
+Trina still continued to work for Uncle Oelbermann.  In the
+mornings she busied herself about the kitchen, the bedroom,
+and the sitting-room; but in the afternoon, for two or three
+hours after lunch, she was occupied with the Noah's ark
+animals.  She took her work to the bay window, spreading out
+a great square of canvas underneath her chair, to catch the
+chips and shavings, which she used afterwards for lighting
+fires.  One after another she caught up the little
+blocks of straight-grained pine, the knife flashed between
+her fingers, the little figure grew rapidly under her touch,
+was finished and ready for painting in a wonderfully short
+time, and was tossed into the basket that stood at her
+elbow.
+
+But very often during that rainy winter after her marriage
+Trina would pause in her work, her hands falling idly into
+her lap, her eyes--her narrow, pale blue eyes--growing wide
+and thoughtful as she gazed, unseeing, out into the rain-
+washed street.
+
+She loved McTeague now with a blind, unreasoning love that
+admitted of no doubt or hesitancy.  Indeed, it seemed to her
+that it was only AFTER her marriage with the dentist
+that she had really begun to love him. With the absolute
+final surrender of herself, the irrevocable, ultimate
+submission, had come an affection the like of which she had
+never dreamed in the old B Street days.  But Trina loved her
+husband, not because she fancied she saw in him any of those
+noble and generous qualities that inspire affection.  The
+dentist might or might not possess them, it was all one with
+Trina.  She loved him because she had given herself to him
+freely, unreservedly; had merged her individuality into his;
+she was his, she belonged to him forever and forever. 
+Nothing that he could do (so she told herself), nothing that
+she herself could do, could change her in this respect. 
+McTeague might cease to love her, might leave her, might
+even die; it would be all the same, SHE WAS HIS.
+
+But it had not been so at first.  During those long, rainy
+days of the fall, days when Trina was left alone for hours,
+at that time when the excitement and novelty of the
+honeymoon were dying down, when the new household was
+settling into its grooves, she passed through many an hour
+of misgiving, of doubt, and even of actual regret.
+
+Never would she forget one Sunday afternoon in particular. 
+She had been married but three weeks.  After dinner she and
+little Miss Baker had gone for a bit of a walk to take
+advantage of an hour's sunshine and to look at some
+wonderful geraniums in a florist's window on Sutter Street. 
+They had been caught in a shower, and on returning to the
+flat the little dressmaker had insisted on fetching
+Trina up to her tiny room and brewing her a cup of strong
+tea, "to take the chill off."  The two women had chatted over
+their teacups the better part of the afternoon, then Trina
+had returned to her rooms.  For nearly three hours McTeague
+had been out of her thoughts, and as she came through their
+little suite, singing softly to herself, she suddenly came
+upon him quite unexpectedly.  Her husband was in the "Dental
+Parlors," lying back in his operating chair, fast asleep. 
+The little stove was crammed with coke, the room was
+overheated, the air thick and foul with the odors of ether,
+of coke gas, of stale beer and cheap tobacco.  The dentist
+sprawled his gigantic limbs over the worn velvet of the
+operating chair; his coat and vest and shoes were off, and
+his huge feet, in their thick gray socks, dangled over the
+edge of the foot-rest; his pipe, fallen from his half-open
+mouth, had spilled the ashes into his lap; while on the
+floor, at his side stood the half-empty pitcher of steam
+beer.  His head had rolled limply upon one shoulder, his
+face was red with sleep, and from his open mouth came a
+terrific sound of snoring.
+
+For a moment Trina stood looking at him as he lay thus,
+prone, inert, half-dressed, and stupefied with the heat of
+the room, the steam beer, and the fumes of the cheap
+tobacco.  Then her little chin quivered and a sob rose to 
+her throat; she fled from the "Parlors," and locking herself
+in her bedroom, flung herself on the bed and burst into an
+agony of weeping.  Ah, no, ah, no, she could not love him. 
+It had all been a dreadful mistake, and now it was
+irrevocable; she was bound to this man for life.  If it was
+as bad as this now, only three weeks after her marriage, how
+would it be in the years to come?  Year after year, month
+after month, hour after hour, she was to see this same face,
+with its salient jaw, was to feel the touch of those
+enormous red hands, was to hear the heavy, elephantine tread
+of those huge feet--in thick gray socks.  Year after year,
+day after day, there would be no change, and it would last
+all her life. Either it would be one long continued
+revulsion, or else--worse than all--she would come to be
+content with him, would come to be like him, would sink to
+the level of steam beer and cheap tobacco, and all her
+pretty ways, her clean, trim little habits, would be
+forgotten, since they would be thrown away upon her stupid,
+brutish husband.  "Her husband!"  THAT, was her husband
+in there--she could yet hear his snores--for life, for life. 
+A great despair seized upon her.  She buried her face in the
+pillow and thought of her mother with an infinite longing.
+
+Aroused at length by the chittering of the canary, McTeague
+had awakened slowly.  After a while he had taken down his
+concertina and played upon it the six very mournful airs
+that he knew.
+
+Face downward upon the bed, Trina still wept.  Throughout
+that little suite could be heard but two sounds, the
+lugubrious strains of the concertina and the noise of
+stifled weeping.
+
+That her husband should be ignorant of her distress seemed
+to Trina an additional grievance.  With perverse
+inconsistency she began to wish him to come to her, to
+comfort her.  He ought to know that she was in trouble, that
+she was lonely and unhappy.
+
+"Oh, Mac," she called in a trembling voice.  But the
+concertina still continued to wail and lament.  Then Trina
+wished she were dead, and on the instant jumped up and ran
+into the "Dental Parlors," and threw herself into her
+husband's arms, crying: "Oh, Mac, dear, love me, love me
+big!  I'm so unhappy."
+
+"What--what--what--" the dentist exclaimed, starting up
+bewildered, a little frightened.
+
+"Nothing, nothing, only LOVE me, love me always and
+always."
+
+But this first crisis, this momentary revolt, as much a
+matter of high-strung feminine nerves as of anything else,
+passed, and in the end Trina's affection for her "old bear"
+grew in spite of herself.  She began to love him more and
+more, not for what he was, but for what she had given up to
+him.  Only once again did Trina undergo a reaction against
+her husband, and then it was but the matter of an instant,
+brought on, curiously enough, by the sight of a bit of egg
+on McTeague's heavy mustache one morning just after
+breakfast.
+
+Then, too, the pair had learned to make concessions, little
+by little, and all unconsciously they adapted their
+modes of life to suit each other.  Instead of sinking to
+McTeague's level as she had feared, Trina found that she
+could make McTeague rise to hers, and in this saw a solution
+of many a difficult and gloomy complication.
+
+For one thing, the dentist began to dress a little better,
+Trina even succeeding in inducing him to wear a high silk
+hat and a frock coat of a Sunday.  Next he relinquished his
+Sunday afternoon's nap and beer in favor of three or four
+hours spent in the park with her--the weather permitting. 
+So that gradually Trina's misgivings ceased, or when they
+did assail her, she could at last meet them with a shrug of
+the shoulders, saying to herself meanwhile, "Well, it's done
+now and it can't be helped; one must make the best of it."
+
+During the first months of their married life these nervous
+relapses of hers had alternated with brusque outbursts of
+affection when her only fear was that her husband's love did
+not equal her own.  Without an instant's warning, she would
+clasp him about the neck, rubbing her cheek against his,
+murmuring:
+
+"Dear old Mac, I love you so, I love you so.  Oh, aren't we
+happy together, Mac, just us two and no one else?  You love
+me as much as I love you, don't you, Mac?  Oh, if you
+shouldn't--if you SHOULDN'T."
+
+But by the middle of the winter Trina's emotions,
+oscillating at first from one extreme to another, commenced
+to settle themselves to an equilibrium of calmness and
+placid quietude. Her household duties began more and more to
+absorb her attention, for she was an admirable housekeeper,
+keeping the little suite in marvellous good order and
+regulating the schedule of expenditure with an economy that
+often bordered on positive niggardliness.  It was a passion
+with her to save money.  In the bottom of her trunk, in the
+bedroom, she hid a brass match-safe that answered the
+purposes of a savings bank. Each time she added a quarter or
+a half dollar to the little store she laughed and sang with
+a veritable childish delight; whereas, if the butcher or
+milkman compelled her to pay an overcharge she was unhappy
+for the rest of the day.  She did not save this money
+for any ulterior purpose, she hoarded instinctively, without
+knowing why, responding to the dentist's remonstrances with:
+
+"Yes, yes, I know I'm a little miser, I know it."
+
+Trina had always been an economical little body, but it was
+only since her great winning in the lottery that she had
+become especially penurious.  No doubt, in her fear lest
+their great good luck should demoralize them and lead to
+habits of extravagance, she had recoiled too far in the
+other direction. Never, never, never should a penny of that
+miraculous fortune be spent; rather should it be added to. 
+It was a nest egg, a monstrous, roc-like nest egg, not so
+large, however, but that it could be made larger.  Already
+by the end of that winter Trina had begun to make up the
+deficit of two hundred dollars that she had been forced to
+expend on the preparations for her marriage.
+
+McTeague, on his part, never asked himself now-a-days
+whether he loved Trina the wife as much as he had loved
+Trina the young girl.  There had been a time when to kiss
+Trina, to take her in his arms, had thrilled him from head
+to heel with a happiness that was beyond words; even the
+smell of her wonderful odorous hair had sent a sensation of
+faintness all through him.  That time was long past now. 
+Those sudden outbursts of affection on the part of his
+little woman, outbursts that only increased in vehemence the
+longer they lived together, puzzled rather than pleased him. 
+He had come to submit to them good-naturedly, answering her
+passionate inquiries with a "Sure, sure, Trina, sure I love
+you.  What--what's the matter with you?"
+
+There was no passion in the dentist's regard for his wife. 
+He dearly liked to have her near him, he took an enormous
+pleasure in watching her as she moved about their rooms,
+very much at home, gay and singing from morning till night;
+and it was his great delight to call her into the "Dental
+Parlors" when a patient was in the chair and, while he held
+the plugger, to have her rap in the gold fillings with the
+little box-wood mallet as he had taught her.  But that
+tempest of passion, that overpowering desire that had
+suddenly taken possession of him that day when he had given
+her ether, again when he had caught her in his arms in
+the B Street station, and again and again during the early
+days of their married life, rarely stirred him now.  On the
+other hand, he was never assailed with doubts as to the
+wisdom of his marriage.
+
+McTeague had relapsed to his wonted stolidity.  He never
+questioned himself, never looked for motives, never went to
+the bottom of things.  The year following upon the summer of
+his marriage was a time of great contentment for him; after
+the novelty of the honeymoon had passed he slipped easily 
+into the new order of things without a question.  Thus his
+life would be for years to come.  Trina was there; he was
+married and settled.  He accepted the situation.  The little
+animal comforts which for him constituted the enjoyment of
+life were ministered to at every turn, or when they were
+interfered with--as in the case of his Sunday afternoon's
+nap and beer--some agreeable substitute was found.  In her
+attempts to improve McTeague--to raise him from the stupid
+animal life to which he had been accustomed in his bachelor
+days--Trina was tactful enough to move so cautiously and
+with such slowness that the dentist was unconscious of any
+process of change.  In the matter of the high silk hat, it
+seemed to him that the initiative had come from himself.
+
+Gradually the dentist improved under the influence of his
+little wife.  He no longer went abroad with frayed cuffs
+about his huge red wrists--or worse, without any cuffs at
+all.  Trina kept his linen clean and mended, doing most of
+his washing herself, and insisting that he should change his
+flannels--thick red flannels they were, with enormous bone
+buttons--once a week, his linen shirts twice a week, and his
+collars and cuffs every second day.  She broke him of the
+habit of eating with his knife, she caused him to substitute
+bottled beer in the place of steam beer, and she induced him
+to take off his hat to Miss Baker, to Heise's wife, and to
+the other women of his acquaintance.  McTeague no longer
+spent an evening at Frenna's.  Instead of this he brought a
+couple of bottles of beer up to the rooms and shared it with
+Trina.  In his "Parlors" he was no longer gruff and
+indifferent to his female patients; he arrived at that stage
+where he could work and talk to them at the same time;
+he even accompanied them to the door, and held it open for
+them when the operation was finished, bowing them out with
+great nods of his huge square-cut head.
+
+Besides all this, he began to observe the broader, larger
+interests of life, interests that affected him not as an
+individual, but as a member of a class, a profession, or a
+political party.  He read the papers, he subscribed to a
+dental magazine; on Easter, Christmas, and New Year's he
+went to church with Trina.  He commenced to have opinions,
+convictions--it was not fair to deprive tax-paying women of
+the privilege to vote; a university education should not be
+a prerequisite for admission to a dental college; the
+Catholic priests were to be restrained in their efforts to
+gain control of the public schools.
+
+But most wonderful of all, McTeague began to have ambitions
+--very vague, very confused ideas of something better--ideas
+for the most part borrowed from Trina.  Some day, perhaps,
+he and his wife would have a house of their own.  What a
+dream!  A little home all to themselves, with six rooms and a
+bath, with a grass plat in front and calla-lilies.  Then
+there would be children.  He would have a son, whose name
+would be Daniel, who would go to High School, and perhaps
+turn out to be a prosperous plumber or house painter.  Then
+this son Daniel would marry a wife, and they would all live
+together in that six-room-and-bath house; Daniel would have
+little children.  McTeague would grow old among them all. 
+The dentist saw himself as a venerable patriarch surrounded
+by children and grandchildren.
+
+So the winter passed.  It was a season of great happiness
+for the McTeagues; the new life jostled itself into its
+grooves.  A routine began.
+
+On weekdays they rose at half-past six, being awakened by
+the boy who brought the bottled milk, and who had
+instructions to pound upon the bedroom door in passing.
+Trina made breakfast--coffee, bacon and eggs, and a roll of
+Vienna bread from the bakery.  The breakfast was eaten in
+the kitchen, on the round deal table covered with the shiny
+oilcloth table-spread tacked on.  After breakfast the
+dentist immediately betook himself to his "Parlors" to meet
+his early morning appointments--those made with the clerks
+and shop girls who stopped in for half an hour on their way
+to their work.
+
+Trina, meanwhile, busied herself about the suite, clearing
+away the breakfast, sponging off the oilcloth table-spread,
+making the bed, pottering about with a broom or duster or
+cleaning rag.  Towards ten o'clock she opened the windows to
+air the rooms, then put on her drab jacket, her little round
+turban with its red wing, took the butcher's and grocer's
+books from the knife basket in the drawer of the kitchen
+table, and descended to the street, where she spent a
+delicious hour--now in the huge market across the way, now
+in the grocer's store with its fragrant aroma of coffee and
+spices, and now before the counters of the haberdasher's,
+intent on a bit of shopping, turning over ends of veiling,
+strips of elastic, or slivers of whalebone.  On the street
+she rubbed elbows with the great ladies of the avenue in
+their beautiful dresses, or at intervals she met an
+acquaintance or two--Miss Baker, or Heise's lame wife, or
+Mrs. Ryer.  At times she passed the flat and looked up at
+the windows of her home, marked by the huge golden molar
+that projected, flashing, from the bay window of the
+"Parlors."  She saw the open windows of the sitting-room,
+the Nottingham lace curtains stirring and billowing in the
+draft, and she caught sight of Maria Macapa's towelled head
+as the Mexican maid-of-all-work went to and fro in the
+suite, sweeping or carrying away the ashes.  Occasionally in
+the windows of the "Parlors" she beheld McTeague's rounded
+back as he bent to his work.  Sometimes, even, they saw each
+other and waved their hands gayly in recognition.
+
+By eleven o'clock Trina returned to the flat, her brown net
+reticule--once her mother's--full of parcels.  At once she
+set about getting lunch--sausages, perhaps, with mashed
+potatoes; or last evening's joint warmed over or made into a
+stew; chocolate, which Trina adored, and a side dish or two
+--a salted herring or a couple of artichokes or a salad.  At
+half-past twelve the dentist came in from the "Parlors,"
+bringing with him the smell of creosote and of ether.
+They sat down to lunch in the sitting-room. They told each
+other of their doings throughout the forenoon; Trina showed
+her purchases, McTeague recounted the progress of an
+operation.  At one o'clock they separated, the dentist
+returning to the "Parlors," Trina settling to her work on
+the Noah's ark animals.  At about three o'clock she put this
+work away, and for the rest of the afternoon was variously
+occupied--sometimes it was the mending, sometimes the wash,
+sometimes new curtains to be put up, or a bit of carpet to
+be tacked down, or a letter to be written, or a visit--
+generally to Miss Baker--to be returned.  Towards five
+o'clock the old woman whom they had hired for that purpose
+came to cook supper, for even Trina was not equal to the
+task of preparing three meals a day.
+
+This woman was French, and was known to the flat as
+Augustine, no one taking enough interest in her to inquire
+for her last name; all that was known of her was that she
+was a decayed French laundress, miserably poor, her trade
+long since ruined by Chinese competition.  Augustine cooked
+well, but she was otherwise undesirable, and Trina lost
+patience with her at every moment.  The old French woman's
+most marked characteristic was her timidity.  Trina could
+scarcely address her a simple direction without Augustine
+quailing and shrinking; a reproof, however gentle, threw her
+into an agony of confusion; while Trina's anger promptly
+reduced her to a state of nervous collapse, wherein she lost
+all power of speech, while her head began to bob and nod
+with an incontrollable twitching of the muscles, much like
+the oscillations of the head of a toy donkey.  Her timidity
+was exasperating, her very presence in the room unstrung the
+nerves, while her morbid eagerness to avoid offence only
+served to develop in her a clumsiness that was at times
+beyond belief.  More than once Trina had decided that she
+could no longer put up with Augustine but each time she had
+retained her as she reflected upon her admirably cooked
+cabbage soups and tapioca puddings, and--which in Trina's
+eyes was her chiefest recommendation--the pittance for which
+she was contented to work.
+
+Augustine had a husband.  He was a spirit-medium--a
+"professor."  At times he held seances in the larger
+rooms of the flat, playing vigorously upon a mouth-organ and
+invoking a familiar whom he called "Edna," and whom he
+asserted was an Indian maiden.
+
+The evening was a period of relaxation for Trina and
+McTeague. They had supper at six, after which McTeague
+smoked his pipe and read the papers for half an hour, while
+Trina and Augustine cleared away the table and washed the
+dishes.  Then, as often as not, they went out together.  One
+of their amusements was to go "down town" after dark and
+promenade Market and Kearney Streets.  It was very gay; a
+great many others were promenading there also.  All of the
+stores were brilliantly lighted and many of them still open. 
+They walked about aimlessly, looking into the shop windows. 
+Trina would take McTeague's arm, and he, very much
+embarrassed at that, would thrust both hands into his
+pockets and pretend not to notice.  They stopped before the
+jewellers' and milliners' windows, finding a great delight
+in picking out things for each other, saying how they would 
+choose this and that if they were rich.  Trina did most of
+the talking.  McTeague merely approving by a growl or a
+movement of the head or shoulders; she was interested in the
+displays of some of the cheaper stores, but he found an
+irresistible charm in an enormous golden molar with four
+prongs that hung at a corner of Kearney Street.  Sometimes
+they would look at Mars or at the moon through the street
+telescopes or sit for a time in the rotunda of a vast
+department store where a band played every evening.
+
+Occasionally they met Heise the harness-maker and his wife,
+with whom they had become acquainted.  Then the evening was
+concluded by a four-cornered party in the Luxembourg, a
+quiet German restaurant under a theatre.  Trina had a tamale
+and a glass of beer, Mrs. Heise (who was a decayed writing
+teacher) ate salads, with glasses of grenadine and currant
+syrups.  Heise drank cocktails and whiskey straight, and
+urged the dentist to join him.  But McTeague was obstinate,
+shaking his head.  "I can't drink that stuff," he said.  "It
+don't agree with me, somehow; I go kinda crazy after
+two glasses."  So he gorged himself with beer and
+frankfurter sausages plastered with German mustard.
+
+When the annual Mechanic's Fair opened, McTeague and Trina
+often spent their evenings there, studying the exhibits
+carefully (since in Trina's estimation education meant
+knowing things and being able to talk about them).  Wearying
+of this they would go up into the gallery, and, leaning
+over, look down into the huge amphitheatre full of light and
+color and movement.
+
+There rose to them the vast shuffling noise of thousands of
+feet and a subdued roar of conversation like the sound of a
+great mill.  Mingled with this was the purring of distant
+machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain, and the
+rhythmic jangling of a brass band, while in the piano
+exhibit a hired performer was playing upon a concert grand
+with a great flourish.  Nearer at hand they could catch ends
+of conversation and notes of laughter, the noise of moving
+dresses, and the rustle of stiffly starched skirts.  Here
+and there school children elbowed their way through the
+crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
+pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips, while the air
+itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.
+
+They even spent some time in the art gallery.  Trina's
+cousin Selina, who gave lessons in hand painting at two bits
+an hour, generally had an exhibit on the walls, which they
+were interested to find.  It usually was a bunch of yellow
+poppies painted on black velvet and framed in gilt.  They
+stood before it some little time, hazarding their opinions,
+and then moved on slowly from one picture to another.  Trina
+had McTeague buy a catalogue and made a duty of finding the
+title of every picture.  This, too, she told McTeague, as a
+kind of education one ought to cultivate.  Trina professed
+to be fond of art, having perhaps acquired a taste for
+painting and sculpture from her experience with the Noah's
+ark animals.
+
+"Of course," she told the dentist, "I'm no critic, I only
+know what I like."  She knew that she liked the "Ideal
+Heads," lovely girls with flowing straw-colored hair and
+immense, upturned eyes.  These always had for title,
+"Reverie," or "An Idyll," or "Dreams of Love."
+
+"I think those are lovely, don't you, Mac?" she said.
+
+"Yes, yes," answered McTeague, nodding his head, bewildered,
+trying to understand.  "Yes, yes, lovely, that's the word. 
+Are you dead sure now, Trina, that all that's hand-painted
+just like the poppies?"
+
+Thus the winter passed, a year went by, then two.  The
+little life of Polk Street, the life of small traders, drug
+clerks, grocers, stationers, plumbers, dentists, doctors,
+spirit-mediums, and the like, ran on monotonously in its
+accustomed grooves.  The first three years of their married
+life wrought little change in the fortunes of the McTeagues. 
+In the third summer the branch post-office was moved from
+the ground floor of the flat to a corner farther up the
+street in order to be near the cable line that ran mail
+cars.  Its place was taken by a German saloon, called a
+"Wein Stube," in the face of the protests of every female
+lodger.  A few months later quite a little flurry of
+excitement ran through the street on the occasion of "The
+Polk Street Open Air Festival," organized to celebrate the
+introduction there of electric lights. The festival lasted
+three days and was quite an affair. The street was garlanded
+with yellow and white bunting; there were processions and
+"floats" and brass bands.  Marcus Schouler was in his
+element during the whole time of the celebration.  He was
+one of the marshals of the parade, and was to be seen at
+every hour of the day, wearing a borrowed high hat and
+cotton gloves, and galloping a broken-down cab-horse over
+the cobbles.  He carried a baton covered with yellow and
+white calico, with which he made furious passes and
+gestures.  His voice was soon reduced to a whisper by
+continued shouting, and he raged and fretted over trifles
+till he wore himself thin.  McTeague was disgusted with him.
+As often as Marcus passed the window of the flat the dentist
+would mutter:
+
+"Ah, you think you're smart, don't you?"
+
+The result of the festival was the organizing of a body
+known as the "Polk Street Improvement Club," of which Marcus
+was elected secretary.  McTeague and Trina often heard
+of him in this capacity through Heise the harness-maker. 
+Marcus had evidently come to have political aspirations.  It
+appeared that he was gaining a reputation as a maker of
+speeches, delivered with fiery emphasis, and occasionally
+reprinted in the "Progress," the organ of the club--
+"outraged constituencies," "opinions warped by personal
+bias," "eyes blinded by party prejudice," etc.
+
+Of her family, Trina heard every fortnight in letters from
+her mother.  The upholstery business which Mr. Sieppe had
+bought was doing poorly, and Mrs. Sieppe bewailed the day
+she had ever left B Street.  Mr. Sieppe was losing money
+every month.  Owgooste, who was to have gone to school, had
+been forced to go to work in "the store," picking waste. 
+Mrs. Sieppe was obliged to take a lodger or two.  Affairs
+were in a very bad way.  Occasionally she spoke of Marcus. 
+Mr. Sieppe had not forgotten him despite his own troubles,
+but still had an eye out for some one whom Marcus could "go
+in with" on a ranch.
+
+It was toward the end of this period of three years that
+Trina and McTeague had their first serious quarrel.  Trina
+had talked so much about having a little house of their own
+at some future day, that McTeague had at length come to
+regard the affair as the end and object of all their labors. 
+For a long time they had had their eyes upon one house in
+particular. It was situated on a cross street close by,
+between Polk Street and the great avenue one block above,
+and hardly a Sunday afternoon passed that Trina and McTeague
+did not go and look at it.  They stood for fully half an
+hour upon the other side of the street, examining every
+detail of its exterior, hazarding guesses as to the
+arrangement of the rooms, commenting upon its immediate
+neighborhood--which was rather sordid.  The house was a
+wooden two-story arrangement, built by a misguided
+contractor in a sort of hideous Queen Anne style, all
+scrolls and meaningless mill work, with a cheap imitation of
+stained glass in the light over the door.  There was a
+microscopic front yard full of dusty calla-lilies.  The
+front door boasted an electric bell.  But for the McTeagues
+it was an ideal home.  Their idea was to live in this little
+house, the dentist retaining merely his office in the
+flat. The two places were but around the corner from each
+other, so that McTeague could lunch with his wife, as usual,
+and could even keep his early morning appointments and
+return to breakfast if he so desired.
+
+However, the house was occupied.  A Hungarian family lived
+in it.  The father kept a stationery and notion "bazaar"
+next to Heise's harness-shop on Polk Street, while the
+oldest son played a third violin in the orchestra of a
+theatre.  The family rented the house unfurnished for
+thirty-five dollars, paying extra for the water.
+
+But one Sunday as Trina and McTeague on their way home from
+their usual walk turned into the cross street on which the
+little house was situated, they became promptly aware of an
+unwonted bustle going on upon the sidewalk in front of it. 
+A dray was back against the curb, an express wagon drove
+away loaded with furniture; bedsteads, looking-glasses, and
+washbowls littered the sidewalks.  The Hungarian family were
+moving out.
+
+"Oh, Mac, look!" gasped Trina.
+
+"Sure, sure," muttered the dentist.
+
+After that they spoke but little.  For upwards of an hour
+the two stood upon the sidewalk opposite, watching intently
+all that went forward, absorbed, excited.
+
+On the evening of the next day they returned and visited the
+house, finding a great delight in going from room to room
+and imagining themselves installed therein.  Here would be
+the bedroom, here the dining-room, here a charming little
+parlor. As they came out upon the front steps once more they
+met the owner, an enormous, red-faced fellow, so fat that
+his walking seemed merely a certain movement of his feet by
+which he pushed his stomach along in front of him.  Trina
+talked with him a few moments, but arrived at no
+understanding, and the two went away after giving him their
+address.  At supper that night McTeague said:
+
+"Huh--what do you think, Trina?"
+
+Trina put her chin in the air, tilting back her heavy tiara
+of swarthy hair.
+
+"I am not so sure yet.  Thirty-five dollars and the
+water extra.  I don't think we can afford it, Mac."
+
+"Ah, pshaw!" growled the dentist, "sure we can."
+
+"It isn't only that," said Trina, "but it'll cost so much to
+make the change."
+
+"Ah, you talk's though we were paupers.  Ain't we got five
+thousand dollars?"
+
+Trina flushed on the instant, even to the lobes of her tiny
+pale ears, and put her lips together.
+
+"Now, Mac, you know I don't want you should talk like that.
+That money's never, never to be touched."
+
+"And you've been savun up a good deal, besides," went on
+McTeague, exasperated at Trina's persistent economies.  "How
+much money have you got in that little brass match-safe in
+the bottom of your trunk?  Pretty near a hundred dollars, I
+guess--ah, sure."  He shut his eyes and nodded his great
+head in a knowing way.
+
+Trina had more than that in the brass match-safe in
+question, but her instinct of hoarding had led her to keep
+it a secret from her husband.  Now she lied to him with
+prompt fluency.
+
+"A hundred dollars!  What are you talking of, Mac?  I've not
+got fifty.  I've not got THIRTY."
+
+"Oh, let's take that little house," broke in McTeague.  "We
+got the chance now, and it may never come again.  Come on,
+Trina, shall we?  Say, come on, shall we, huh?"
+
+"We'd have to be awful saving if we did, Mac."
+
+"Well, sure, I say let's take it."
+
+"I don't know," said Trina, hesitating.  "Wouldn't it be
+lovely to have a house all to ourselves?  But let's not
+decide until to-morrow."
+
+The next day the owner of the house called.  Trina was out
+at her morning's marketing and the dentist, who had no one
+in the chair at the time, received him in the "Parlors."
+Before he was well aware of it, McTeague had concluded the
+bargain.  The owner bewildered him with a world of phrases,
+made him believe that it would be a great saving to
+move into the little house, and finally offered it to him
+"water free."
+
+"All right, all right," said McTeague, "I'll take it."
+
+The other immediately produced a paper.
+
+"Well, then, suppose you sign for the first month's rent,
+and we'll call it a bargain.  That's business, you know,"
+and McTeague, hesitating, signed.
+
+"I'd like to have talked more with my wife about it first,"
+he said, dubiously.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," answered the owner, easily.  "I
+guess if the head of the family wants a thing, that's
+enough."
+
+McTeague could not wait until lunch time to tell the news to
+Trina.  As soon as he heard her come in, he laid down the
+plaster-of-paris mould he was making and went out into the
+kitchen and found her chopping up onions.
+
+"Well, Trina," he said, "we got that house.  I've taken it."
+
+"What do you mean?" she answered, quickly.  The dentist told
+her.
+
+"And you signed a paper for the first month's rent?"
+
+"Sure, sure.  That's business, you know."
+
+"Well, why did you DO it?" cried Trina.  "You might have
+asked ME something about it.  Now, what have you done?
+I was talking with Mrs. Ryer about that house while I was
+out this morning, and she said the Hungarians moved out
+because it was absolutely unhealthy; there's water been
+standing in the basement for months.  And she told me, too,"
+Trina went on indignantly, "that she knew the owner, and she
+was sure we could get the house for thirty if we'd bargain
+for it.  Now what have you gone and done?  I hadn't made up
+my mind about taking the house at all.  And now I WON'T
+take it, with the water in the basement and all."
+
+"Well--well," stammered McTeague, helplessly, "we needn't go
+in if it's unhealthy."
+
+"But you've signed a PAPER," cried Trina, exasperated.
+"You've got to pay that first month's rent, anyhow--to
+forfeit it.  Oh, you are so stupid!  There's thirty-
+five dollars just thrown away.  I SHAN'T go into that
+house; we won't move a FOOT out of here.  I've changed
+my mind about it, and there's water in the basement
+besides."
+
+"Well, I guess we can stand thirty-five dollars," mumbled
+the dentist, "if we've got to."
+
+"Thirty-five dollars just thrown out of the window," cried
+Trina, her teeth clicking, every instinct of her parsimony
+aroused.  "Oh, you the thick-wittedest man that I ever knew. 
+Do you think we're millionaires?  Oh, to think of losing
+thirty-five dollars like that."  Tears were in her eyes,
+tears of grief as well as of anger.  Never had McTeague seen
+his little woman so aroused.  Suddenly she rose to her feet
+and slammed the chopping-bowl down upon the table.  "Well,
+I won't pay a nickel of it," she exclaimed.
+
+"Huh? What, what?" stammered the dentist, taken all aback by
+her outburst.
+
+"I say that you will find that money, that thirty-five
+dollars, yourself."
+
+"Why--why----"
+
+"It's your stupidity got us into this fix, and you'll be the
+one that'll suffer by it."
+
+"I can't do it, I WON'T do it.  We'll--we'll share and
+share alike.  Why, you said--you told me you'd take the
+house if the water was free."
+
+"I NEVER did.  I NEVER did.  How can you stand there
+and say such a thing?"
+
+"You did tell me that," vociferated McTeague, beginning to
+get angry in his turn.
+
+"Mac, I didn't, and you know it.  And what's more, I won't
+pay a nickel.  Mr. Heise pays his bill next week, it's
+forty-three dollars, and you can just pay the thirty-five
+out of that."
+
+"Why, you got a whole hundred dollars saved up in your
+match-safe," shouted the dentist, throwing out an arm with
+an awkward gesture.  "You pay half and I'll pay half, that's
+only fair."
+
+"No, no, NO," exclaimed Trina.  "It's not a hundred
+dollars.  You won't touch it; you won't touch my money, I
+tell you."
+
+"Ah, how does it happen to be yours, I'd like to know?"
+
+"It's mine!  It's mine!  It's mine!" cried Trina, her face
+scarlet, her teeth clicking like the snap of a closing
+purse.
+
+"It ain't any more yours than it is mine."
+
+"Every penny of it is mine."
+
+"Ah, what a fine fix you'd get me into," growled the
+dentist. "I've signed the paper with the owner; that's
+business, you know, that's business, you know; and now you
+go back on me. Suppose we'd taken the house, we'd 'a' shared
+the rent, wouldn't we, just as we do here?"
+
+Trina shrugged her shoulders with a great affectation of
+indifference and began chopping the onions again.
+
+"You settle it with the owner," she said.  "It's your
+affair; you've got the money."  She pretended to assume a
+certain calmness as though the matter was something that no
+longer affected her.  Her manner exasperated McTeague all
+the more.
+
+"No, I won't; no, I won't; I won't either," he shouted. 
+"I'll pay my half and he can come to you for the other
+half."  Trina put a hand over her ear to shut out his
+clamor.
+
+"Ah, don't try and be smart," cried McTeague.  "Come, now,
+yes or no, will you pay your half?"
+
+"You heard what I said."
+
+"Will you pay it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Miser!" shouted McTeague.  "Miser! you're worse than old
+Zerkow.  All right, all right, keep your money.  I'll pay
+the whole thirty-five.  I'd rather lose it than be such a
+miser as you."
+
+"Haven't you got anything to do," returned Trina, "instead
+of staying here and abusing me?"
+
+"Well, then, for the last time, will you help me out?" 
+Trina cut the heads of a fresh bunch of onions and gave no
+answer.
+
+"Huh? will you?"
+
+"I'd like to have my kitchen to myself, please," she said in
+a mincing way, irritating to a last degree.  The
+dentist stamped out of the room, banging the door behind
+him.
+
+For nearly a week the breach between them remained unhealed.
+Trina only spoke to the dentist in monosyllables, while he,
+exasperated at her calmness and frigid reserve, sulked in
+his "Dental Parlors," muttering terrible things beneath his
+mustache, or finding solace in his concertina, playing his
+six lugubrious airs over and over again, or swearing
+frightful oaths at his canary.  When Heise paid his bill,
+McTeague, in a fury, sent the amount to the owner of the
+little house.
+
+There was no formal reconciliation between the dentist and
+his little woman.  Their relations readjusted themselves
+inevitably.  By the end of the week they were as amicable as
+ever, but it was long before they spoke of the little house
+again.  Nor did they ever revisit it of a Sunday afternoon. 
+A month or so later the Ryers told them that the owner
+himself had moved in.  The McTeagues never occupied that
+little house.
+
+But Trina suffered a reaction after the quarrel.  She began
+to be sorry she had refused to help her husband, sorry she
+had brought matters to such an issue.  One afternoon as she
+was at work on the Noah's ark animals, she surprised herself
+crying over the affair.  She loved her "old bear" too much 
+to do him an injustice, and perhaps, after all, she had been
+in the wrong. Then it occurred to her how pretty it would be
+to come up behind him unexpectedly, and slip the money,
+thirty-five dollars, into his hand, and pull his huge head
+down to her and kiss his bald spot as she used to do in the
+days before they were married.
+
+Then she hesitated, pausing in her work, her knife dropping
+into her lap, a half-whittled figure between her fingers. 
+If not thirty-five dollars, then at least fifteen or
+sixteen, her share of it.  But a feeling of reluctance, a
+sudden revolt against this intended generosity, arose in
+her.
+
+"No, no," she said to herself.  "I'll give him ten dollars.
+I'll tell him it's all I can afford.  It IS all I can
+afford."
+
+She hastened to finish the figure of the animal she was then
+at work upon, putting in the ears and tail with a drop
+of glue, and tossing it into the basket at her side. Then
+she rose and went into the bedroom and opened her trunk, 
+taking the key from under a corner of the carpet where she
+kept it hid.
+
+At the very bottom of her trunk, under her bridal dress, she
+kept her savings.  It was all in change--half dollars and
+dollars for the most part, with here and there a gold piece.
+Long since the little brass match-box had overflowed.  Trina
+kept the surplus in a chamois-skin sack she had made from an
+old chest protector.  Just now, yielding to an impulse which
+often seized her, she drew out the match-box and the chamois
+sack, and emptying the contents on the bed, counted them
+carefully.  It came to one hundred and sixty-five dollars,
+all told.  She counted it and recounted it and made little
+piles of it, and rubbed the gold pieces between the folds of
+her apron until they shone.
+
+"Ah, yes, ten dollars is all I can afford to give Mac," said
+Trina, "and even then, think of it, ten dollars--it will be
+four or five months before I can save that again.  But, dear
+old Mac, I know it would make him feel glad, and perhaps,"
+she added, suddenly taken with an idea, "perhaps Mac will
+refuse to take it."
+
+She took a ten-dollar piece from the heap and put the rest
+away.  Then she paused:
+
+"No, not the gold piece," she said to herself.  "It's too
+pretty.  He can have the silver."  She made the change and
+counted out ten silver dollars into her palm.  But what a
+difference it made in the appearance and weight of the
+little chamois bag!  The bag was shrunken and withered, long
+wrinkles appeared running downward from the draw-string.  It
+was a lamentable sight.  Trina looked longingly at the ten
+broad pieces in her hand.  Then suddenly all her intuitive
+desire of saving, her instinct of hoarding, her love of
+money for the money's sake, rose strong within her.
+
+"No, no, no," she said.  "I can't do it.  It may be mean,
+but I can't help it.  It's stronger than I."  She returned
+the money to the bag and locked it and the brass match-box
+in her trunk, turning the key with a long breath of
+satisfaction.
+
+She was a little troubled, however, as she went back
+into the sitting-room and took up her work.
+
+"I didn't use to be so stingy," she told herself. "Since I
+won in the lottery I've become a regular little miser.  It's
+growing on me, but never mind, it's a good fault, and,
+anyhow, I can't help it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+
+On that particular morning the McTeagues had risen a half
+hour earlier than usual and taken a hurried breakfast in the
+kitchen on the deal table with its oilcloth cover.  Trina
+was house-cleaning that week and had a presentiment of a
+hard day's work ahead of her, while McTeague remembered a
+seven o'clock appointment with a little German shoemaker.
+
+At about eight o'clock, when the dentist had been in his
+office for over an hour, Trina descended upon the bedroom, a
+towel about her head and the roller-sweeper in her hand. 
+She covered the bureau and sewing machine with sheets, and
+unhooked the chenille portieres between the bedroom and the
+sitting-room.  As she was tying the Nottingham lace curtains
+at the window into great knots, she saw old Miss Baker on
+the opposite sidewalk in the street below, and raising the
+sash called down to her.
+
+"Oh, it's you, Mrs. McTeague," cried the retired dressmaker,
+facing about, her head in the air.  Then a long conversation
+was begun, Trina, her arms folded under her breast, her
+elbows resting on the window ledge, willing to be idle for a
+moment; old Miss Baker, her market-basket on her arm, her
+hands wrapped in the ends of her worsted shawl against
+the cold of the early morning.  They exchanged phrases,
+calling to each other from window to curb, their breath
+coming from their lips in faint puffs of vapor, their voices
+shrill, and raised to dominate the clamor of the waking
+street.  The newsboys had made their appearance on the
+street, together with the day laborers.  The cable cars had
+begun to fill up; all along the street could be seen the
+shopkeepers taking down their shutters; some were still
+breakfasting.  Now and then a waiter from one of the cheap
+restaurants crossed from one sidewalk to another, balancing
+on one palm a tray covered with a napkin.
+
+"Aren't you out pretty early this morning, Miss Baker?"
+called Trina.
+
+"No, no," answered the other.  "I'm always up at half-past
+six, but I don't always get out so soon.  I wanted to get a
+nice head of cabbage and some lentils for a soup, and if you
+don't go to market early, the restaurants get all the best."
+
+"And you've been to market already, Miss Baker?"
+
+"Oh, my, yes; and I got a fish--a sole--see."  She drew the
+sole in question from her basket.
+
+"Oh, the lovely sole!" exclaimed Trina.
+
+"I got this one at Spadella's; he always has good fish on
+Friday.  How is the doctor, Mrs. McTeague?"
+
+"Ah, Mac is always well, thank you, Miss Baker."
+
+"You know, Mrs. Ryer told me," cried the little dressmaker,
+moving forward a step out of the way of a "glass-put-in"
+man, "that Doctor McTeague pulled a tooth of that Catholic
+priest, Father--oh, I forget his name--anyhow, he pulled his
+tooth with his fingers.  Was that true, Mrs. McTeague?"
+
+"Oh, of course.  Mac does that almost all the time now,
+'specially with front teeth.  He's got a regular reputation
+for it.  He says it's brought him more patients than even
+the sign I gave him," she added, pointing to the big golden
+molar projecting from the office window.
+
+"With his fingers!  Now, think of that," exclaimed Miss
+Baker, wagging her head.  "Isn't he that strong!  It's just
+wonderful. Cleaning house to-day?" she inquired,
+glancing at Trina's towelled head.
+
+"Um hum," answered Trina.  "Maria Macapa's coming in to help
+pretty soon."
+
+At the mention of Maria's name the little old dressmaker
+suddenly uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Well, if I'm not here talking to you and forgetting
+something I was just dying to tell you.  Mrs. McTeague, what
+ever in the world do you suppose?  Maria and old Zerkow,
+that red-headed Polish Jew, the rag-bottles-sacks man, you
+know, they're going to be married."
+
+"No!" cried Trina, in blank amazement.  "You don't mean it."
+
+"Of course I do.  Isn't it the funniest thing you ever heard
+of?"
+
+"Oh, tell me all about it," said Trina, leaning eagerly from
+the window.  Miss Baker crossed the street and stood just
+beneath her.
+
+"Well, Maria came to me last night and wanted me to make her
+a new gown, said she wanted something gay, like what the
+girls at the candy store wear when they go out with their
+young men.  I couldn't tell what had got into the girl,
+until finally she told me she wanted something to get
+married in, and that Zerkow had asked her to marry him, and
+that she was going to do it.  Poor Maria!  I guess it's the
+first and only offer she ever received, and it's just turned
+her head."
+
+"But what DO those two see in each other?" cried Trina.
+"Zerkow is a horror, he's an old man, and his hair is red
+and his voice is gone, and then he's a Jew, isn't he?"
+
+"I know, I know; but it's Maria's only chance for a husband,
+and she don't mean to let it pass.  You know she isn't quite
+right in her head, anyhow.  I'm awfully sorry for poor
+Maria.  But I can't see what Zerkow wants to marry her
+for.  It's not possible that he's in love with Maria, it's
+out of the question.  Maria hasn't a sou, either, and I'm
+just positive that Zerkow has lots of money."
+
+"I'll bet I know why," exclaimed Trina, with sudden
+conviction; "yes, I know just why.  See here, Miss Baker,
+you know how crazy old Zerkow is after money and gold
+and those sort of things."
+
+"Yes, I know; but you know Maria hasn't----"
+
+"Now, just listen.  You've heard Maria tell about that
+wonderful service of gold dishes she says her folks used to
+own in Central America; she's crazy on that subject, don't
+you know.  She's all right on everything else, but just
+start her on that service of gold plate and she'll talk you
+deaf.  She can describe it just as though she saw it, and
+she can make you see it, too, almost. Now, you see, Maria
+and Zerkow have known each other pretty well.  Maria goes to
+him every two weeks or so to sell him junk; they got
+acquainted that way, and I know Maria's been dropping in to
+see him pretty often this last year, and sometimes he comes
+here to see her.  He's made Maria tell him the story of that
+plate over and over and over again, and Maria does it and is
+glad to, because he's the only one that believes it.  Now
+he's going to marry her just so's he can hear that story
+every day, every hour.  He's pretty near as crazy on the
+subject as Maria is.  They're a pair for you, aren't they? 
+Both crazy over a lot of gold dishes that never existed. 
+Perhaps Maria'll marry him because it's her only chance to
+get a husband, but I'm sure it's more for the reason that
+she's got some one to talk to now who believes her story. 
+Don't you think I'm right?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I guess you're right," admitted Miss Baker.
+
+"But it's a queer match anyway you put it," said Trina,
+musingly.
+
+"Ah, you may well say that," returned the other, nodding her
+head.  There was a silence.  For a long moment the dentist's
+wife and the retired dressmaker, the one at the window, the
+other on the sidewalk, remained lost in thought, wondering
+over the strangeness of the affair.
+
+But suddenly there was a diversion.  Alexander, Marcus
+Schouler's Irish setter, whom his master had long since
+allowed the liberty of running untrammelled about the
+neighborhood, turned the corner briskly and came trotting
+along the sidewalk where Miss Baker stood.  At the same
+moment the Scotch collie who had at one time belonged
+to the branch post-office issued from the side door of a
+house not fifty feet away.  In an instant the two enemies
+had recognized each other.  They halted abruptly, their fore
+feet planted rigidly.  Trina uttered a little cry.
+
+"Oh, look out, Miss Baker.  Those two dogs hate each other
+just like humans.  You best look out.  They'll fight sure."  
+Miss Baker sought safety in a nearby vestibule, whence she
+peered forth at the scene, very interested and curious. 
+Maria Macapa's head thrust itself from one of the top-story
+windows of the flat, with a shrill cry.  Even McTeague's
+huge form appeared above the half curtains of the "Parlor"
+windows, while over his shoulder could be seen the face of
+the "patient," a napkin tucked in his collar, the rubber dam
+depending from his mouth. All the flat knew of the feud 
+between the dogs, but never before had the pair been brought
+face to face.
+
+Meanwhile, the collie and the setter had drawn near to each
+other; five feet apart they paused as if by mutual consent. 
+The collie turned sidewise to the setter; the setter
+instantly wheeled himself flank on to the collie.  Their
+tails rose and stiffened, they raised their lips over their
+long white fangs, the napes of their necks bristled, and
+they showed each other the vicious whites of their eyes,
+while they drew in their breaths with prolonged and rasping
+snarls.  Each dog seemed to be the personification of fury
+and unsatisfied hate.  They began to circle about each other
+with infinite slowness, walking stiffed-legged and upon the
+very points of their feet.  Then they wheeled about and
+began to circle in the opposite direction.  Twice they
+repeated this motion, their snarls growing louder.  But
+still they did not come together, and the distance of five
+feet between them was maintained with an almost mathematical
+precision.  It was magnificent, but it was not war.  Then
+the setter, pausing in his walk, turned his head slowly from
+his enemy.  The collie sniffed the air and pretended an
+interest in an old shoe lying in the gutter.  Gradually and
+with all the dignity of monarchs they moved away from each
+other. Alexander stalked back to the corner of the street. 
+The collie paced toward the side gate whence he had
+issued, affecting to remember something of great importance. 
+They disappeared.  Once out of sight of one another they
+began to bark furiously.
+
+"Well, I NEVER!" exclaimed Trina in great disgust.  "The
+way those two dogs have been carrying on you'd 'a' thought
+they would 'a' just torn each other to pieces when they had
+the chance, and here I'm wasting the whole morning----" she
+closed her window with a bang.
+
+"Sick 'im, sick 'im," called Maria Macapa, in a vain attempt
+to promote a fight.
+
+Old Miss Baker came out of the vestibule, pursing her lips,
+quite put out at the fiasco.  "And after all that fuss," she
+said to herself aggrievedly.
+
+The little dressmaker bought an envelope of nasturtium seeds
+at the florist's, and returned to her tiny room in the flat. 
+But as she slowly mounted the first flight of steps she
+suddenly came face to face with Old Grannis, who was coming
+down. It was between eight and nine, and he was on his way
+to his little dog hospital, no doubt.  Instantly Miss Baker
+was seized with trepidation, her curious little false curls
+shook, a faint--a very faint--flush came into her withered
+cheeks, and her heart beat so violently under the worsted
+shawl that she felt obliged to shift the market-basket to
+her other arm and put out her free hand to steady herself
+against the rail.
+
+On his part, Old Grannis was instantly overwhelmed with
+confusion.  His awkwardness seemed to paralyze his limbs,
+his lips twitched and turned dry, his hand went tremblingly
+to his chin.  But what added to Miss Baker's miserable
+embarrassment on this occasion was the fact that the old
+Englishman should meet her thus, carrying a sordid market-
+basket full of sordid fish and cabbage. It seemed as if a
+malicious fate persisted in bringing the two old people face
+to face at the most inopportune moments.
+
+Just now, however, a veritable catastrophe occurred.  The
+little old dressmaker changed her basket to her other arm at
+precisely the wrong moment, and Old Grannis, hastening to
+pass, removing his hat in a hurried salutation, struck it
+with his fore arm, knocking it from her grasp, and
+sending it rolling and bumping down the stairs.  The sole
+fell flat upon the first landing; the lentils scattered
+themselves over the entire flight; while the cabbage,
+leaping from step to step, thundered down the incline and
+brought up against the street door with a shock that
+reverberated through the entire building.
+
+The little retired dressmaker, horribly vexed, nervous and
+embarrassed, was hard put to it to keep back the tears.  Old
+Grannis stood for a moment with averted eyes, murmuring:
+"Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.  I--I really--I beg your
+pardon, really--really."
+
+Marcus Schouler, coming down stairs from his room, saved the
+situation.
+
+"Hello, people," he cried.  "By damn! you've upset your
+basket--you have, for a fact.  Here, let's pick um up."  He
+and Old Grannis went up and down the flight, gathering up
+the fish, the lentils, and the sadly battered cabbage. 
+Marcus was raging over the pusillanimity of Alexander, of
+which Maria had just told him.
+
+"I'll cut him in two--with the whip," he shouted.  "I will,
+I will, I say I will, for a fact.  He wouldn't fight, hey? 
+I'll give um all the fight he wants, nasty, mangy cur.  If
+he won't fight he won't eat.  I'm going to get the butcher's
+bull pup and I'll put um both in a bag and shake um up.  I
+will, for a fact, and I guess Alec will fight.  Come along,
+Mister Grannis," and he took the old Englishman away.
+
+Little Miss Baker hastened to her room and locked herself
+in. She was excited and upset during all the rest of the
+day, and listened eagerly for Old Grannis's return that
+evening.  He went instantly to work binding up "The Breeder
+and Sportsman," and back numbers of the "Nation."  She heard
+him softly draw his chair and the table on which he had
+placed his little binding apparatus close to the wall.  At
+once she did the same, brewing herself a cup of tea.  All
+through that evening the two old people "kept company" with
+each other, after their own peculiar fashion.  "Setting out
+with each other" Miss Baker had begun to call it.  That they
+had been presented, that they had even been forced to
+talk together, had made no change in their relative
+positions.  Almost immediately they had fallen back into
+their old ways again, quite unable to master their timidity,
+to overcome the stifling embarrassment that seized upon them
+when in each other's presence.  It was a sort of hypnotism,
+a thing stronger than themselves.  But they were not
+altogether dissatisfied with the way things had come to be. 
+It was their little romance, their last, and they were
+living through it with supreme enjoyment and calm
+contentment.
+
+Marcus Schouler still occupied his old room on the floor
+above the McTeagues.  They saw but little of him, however. 
+At long intervals the dentist or his wife met him on the
+stairs of the flat.  Sometimes he would stop and talk with
+Trina, inquiring after the Sieppes, asking her if Mr. Sieppe
+had yet heard of any one with whom he, Marcus, could "go in
+with on a ranch."  McTeague, Marcus merely nodded to.  Never
+had the quarrel between the two men been completely patched
+up.  It did not seem possible to the dentist now that Marcus
+had ever been his "pal," that they had ever taken long walks
+together.  He was sorry that he had treated Marcus gratis
+for an ulcerated tooth, while Marcus daily recalled the fact
+that he had given up his "girl" to his friend--the girl who
+had won a fortune--as the great mistake of his life.  Only
+once since the wedding had he called upon Trina, at a time
+when he knew McTeague would be out.  Trina had shown him
+through the rooms and had told him, innocently enough, how
+gay was their life there.  Marcus had come away fairly sick
+with envy; his rancor against the dentist--and against
+himself, for that matter--knew no bounds.  "And you might
+'a' had it all yourself, Marcus Schouler," he muttered to
+himself on the stairs.  "You mushhead, you damn fool!"
+
+Meanwhile, Marcus was becoming involved in the politics of
+his ward.  As secretary of the Polk Street Improvement Club
+--which soon developed into quite an affair and began to
+assume the proportions of a Republican political machine--he
+found he could make a little, a very little more than enough
+to live on.  At once he had given up his position as Old
+Grannis's assistant in the dog hospital.  Marcus felt
+that he needed a wider sphere. He had his eye upon a place
+connected with the city pound.  When the great railroad
+strike occurred, he promptly got himself engaged as deputy-
+sheriff, and spent a memorable week in Sacramento, where he
+involved himself in more than one terrible melee with the
+strikers.  Marcus had that quickness of temper and
+passionate readiness to take offence which passes among his
+class for bravery.  But whatever were his motives, his
+promptness to face danger could not for a moment be doubted.
+After the strike he returned to Polk Street, and throwing
+himself into the Improvement Club, heart, soul, and body,
+soon became one of its ruling spirits.  In a certain local
+election, where a huge paving contract was at stake, the
+club made itself felt in the ward, and Marcus so managed his
+cards and pulled his wires that, at the end of the matter,
+he found himself some four hundred dollars to the good.
+
+When McTeague came out of his "Parlors" at noon of the day
+upon which Trina had heard the news of Maria Macapa's
+intended marriage, he found Trina burning coffee on a shovel
+in the sitting-room.  Try as she would, Trina could never
+quite eradicate from their rooms a certain faint and
+indefinable odor, particularly offensive to her.  The smell
+of the photographer's chemicals persisted in spite of all
+Trina could do to combat it.  She burnt pastilles and
+Chinese punk, and even, as now, coffee on a shovel, all to
+no purpose.  Indeed, the only drawback to their delightful
+home was the general unpleasant smell that pervaded it--a
+smell that arose partly from the photographer's chemicals,
+partly from the cooking in the little kitchen, and partly
+from the ether and creosote of the dentist's "Parlors."
+
+As McTeague came in to lunch on this occasion, he found the
+table already laid, a red cloth figured with white flowers
+was spread, and as he took his seat his wife put down the
+shovel on a chair and brought in the stewed codfish and the
+pot of chocolate.  As he tucked his napkin into his enormous
+collar, McTeague looked vaguely about the room, rolling his
+eyes.
+
+During the three years of their married life the McTeagues
+had made but few additions to their furniture, Trina
+declaring that they could not afford it.  The sitting-
+room could boast of but three new ornaments.  Over the
+melodeon hung their marriage certificate in a black frame. 
+It was balanced upon one side by Trina's wedding bouquet
+under a glass case, preserved by some fearful unknown
+process, and upon the other by the photograph of Trina and
+the dentist in their wedding finery.  This latter picture
+was quite an affair, and had been taken immediately after
+the wedding, while McTeague's broadcloth was still new, and
+before Trina's silks and veil had lost their stiffness.  It
+represented Trina, her veil thrown back, sitting very
+straight in a rep armchair, her elbows well in at her sides,
+holding her bouquet of cut flowers directly before her.  The
+dentist stood at her side, one hand on her shoulder, the
+other thrust into the breast of his "Prince Albert," his
+chin in the air, his eyes to one side, his left foot forward
+in the attitude of a statue of a Secretary of State.
+
+"Say, Trina," said McTeague, his mouth full of codfish,
+"Heise looked in on me this morning.  He says 'What's the
+matter with a basket picnic over at Schuetzen Park next
+Tuesday?'  You know the paper-hangers are going to be in the
+"Parlors" all that day, so I'll have a holiday.  That's what
+made Heise think of it. Heise says he'll get the Ryers to go
+too.  It's the anniversary of their wedding day.  We'll ask
+Selina to go; she can meet us on the other side.  Come on,
+let's go, huh, will you?"
+
+Trina still had her mania for family picnics, which had been
+one of the Sieppes most cherished customs; but now there
+were other considerations.
+
+"I don't know as we can afford it this month, Mac," she
+said, pouring the chocolate.  "I got to pay the gas bill
+next week, and there's the papering of your office to be
+paid for some time."
+
+"I know, I know," answered her husband.  "But I got a new
+patient this week, had two molars and an upper incisor
+filled at the very first sitting, and he's going to bring
+his children round.  He's a barber on the next block."
+
+"Well you pay half, then," said Trina.  "It'll cost three or
+four dollars at the very least; and mind, the Heises pay
+their own fare both ways, Mac, and everybody gets their
+OWN lunch. Yes," she added, after a pause, "I'll write
+and have Selina join us.  I haven't seen Selina in months. 
+I guess I'll have to put up a lunch for her, though,"
+admitted Trina, "the way we did last time, because she lives
+in a boarding-house now, and they make a fuss about putting
+up a lunch."
+
+They could count on pleasant weather at this time of the
+year--it was May--and that particular Tuesday was all that
+could be desired.  The party assembled at the ferry slip at
+nine o'clock, laden with baskets.  The McTeagues came last
+of all; Ryer and his wife had already boarded the boat. 
+They met the Heises in the waiting-room.
+
+"Hello, Doctor," cried the harness-maker as the McTeagues
+came up.  "This is what you'd call an old folks' picnic, all
+married people this time."
+
+The party foregathered on the upper deck as the boat
+started, and sat down to listen to the band of Italian
+musicians who were playing outside this morning because of
+the fineness of the weather.
+
+"Oh, we're going to have lots of fun," cried Trina.  "If
+it's anything I do love it's a picnic.  Do you remember our
+first picnic, Mac?"
+
+"Sure, sure," replied the dentist; "we had a Gotha truffle."
+
+"And August lost his steamboat, put in Trina, "and papa
+smacked him.  I remember it just as well."
+
+"Why, look there," said Mrs. Heise, nodding at a figure
+coming up the companion-way.  "Ain't that Mr. Schouler?"
+
+It was Marcus, sure enough.  As he caught sight of the party
+he gaped at them a moment in blank astonishment, and then
+ran up, his eyes wide.
+
+"Well, by damn!" he exclaimed, excitedly.  "What's up? 
+Where you all going, anyhow?  Say, ain't ut queer we should
+all run up against each other like this?"  He made great
+sweeping bows to the three women, and shook hands with
+"Cousin Trina," adding, as he turned to the men of the
+party, "Glad to see you, Mister Heise.  How do, Mister
+Ryer?"  The dentist, who had formulated some sort of
+reserved greeting, he ignored completely.  McTeague
+settled himself in his seat, growling inarticulately
+behind his mustache.
+
+"Say, say, what's all up, anyhow?" cried Marcus again.
+
+"It's a picnic," exclaimed the three women, all speaking at
+once; and Trina added, "We're going over to the same old
+Schuetzen Park again.  But you're all fixed up yourself,
+Cousin Mark; you look as though you were going somewhere
+yourself."
+
+In fact, Marcus was dressed with great care.  He wore a new
+pair of slate-blue trousers, a black "cutaway," and a white
+lawn "tie" (for him the symbol of the height of elegance). 
+He carried also his cane, a thin wand of ebony with a gold
+head, presented to him by the Improvement Club in
+"recognition of services."
+
+"That's right, that's right," said Marcus, with a grin. 
+"I'm takun a holiday myself to-day.  I had a bit of business
+to do over at Oakland, an' I thought I'd go up to B Street
+afterward and see Selina.  I haven't called on----"
+
+But the party uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Why, Selina is going with us."
+
+"She's going to meet us at the Schuetzen Park station"
+explained Trina.
+
+Marcus's business in Oakland was a fiction.  He was crossing
+the bay that morning solely to see Selina.  Marcus had
+"taken up with" Selina a little after Trina had married, and
+had been "rushing" her ever since, dazzled and attracted by
+her accomplishments, for which he pretended a great respect. 
+At the prospect of missing Selina on this occasion, he was
+genuinely disappointed.  His vexation at once assumed the
+form of exasperation against McTeague.  It was all the
+dentist's fault. Ah, McTeague was coming between him and
+Selina now as he had come between him and Trina.  Best look
+out, by damn! how he monkeyed with him now.  Instantly his
+face flamed and he glanced over furiously at the dentist,
+who, catching his eye, began again to mutter behind his
+mustache.
+
+"Well, say," began Mrs. Ryer, with some hesitation, looking
+to Ryer for approval, "why can't Marcus come along with us?"
+
+"Why, of course," exclaimed Mrs. Heise, disregarding her
+husband's vigorous nudges.  "I guess we got lunch
+enough to go round, all right; don't you say so, Mrs.
+McTeague?"
+
+Thus appealed to, Trina could only concur.
+
+"Why, of course, Cousin Mark," she said; "of course, come
+along with us if you want to."
+
+"Why, you bet I will," cried Marcus, enthusiastic in an
+instant.  "Say, this is outa sight; it is, for a fact; a
+picnic--ah, sure--and we'll meet Selina at the station."
+
+Just as the boat was passing Goat Island, the harness-maker
+proposed that the men of the party should go down to the bar
+on the lower deck and shake for the drinks.  The idea had an
+immediate success.
+
+"Have to see you on that," said Ryer.
+
+"By damn, we'll have a drink!  Yes, sir, we will, for a
+fact."
+
+"Sure, sure, drinks, that's the word."
+
+At the bar Heise and Ryer ordered cocktails, Marcus called
+for a "creme Yvette" in order to astonish the others.  The
+dentist spoke for a glass of beer.
+
+"Say, look here," suddenly exclaimed Heise as they took
+their glasses.  "Look here, you fellahs," he had turned to
+Marcus and the dentist.  "You two fellahs have had a grouch
+at each other for the last year or so; now what's the matter
+with your shaking hands and calling quits?"
+
+McTeague was at once overcome with a great feeling of
+magnanimity.  He put out his great hand.
+
+"I got nothing against Marcus," he growled.
+
+"Well, I don't care if I shake," admitted Marcus, a little
+shamefacedly, as their palms touched.  "I guess that's all
+right."
+
+"That's the idea," exclaimed Heise, delighted at his
+success. "Come on, boys, now let's drink."  Their elbows
+crooked and they drank silently.
+
+Their picnic that day was very jolly.  Nothing had changed
+at Schuetzen Park since the day of that other memorable
+Sieppe picnic four years previous.  After lunch the men took
+themselves off to the rifle range, while Selina, Trina, and
+the other two women put away the dishes.  An hour later the
+men joined them in great spirits.  Ryer had won the
+impromptu match which they had arranged, making quite a
+wonderful score, which included three clean bulls' eyes,
+while McTeague had not been able even to hit the target
+itself.
+
+Their shooting match had awakened a spirit of rivalry in the
+men, and the rest of the afternoon was passed in athletic
+exercises between them.  The women sat on the slope of the
+grass, their hats and gloves laid aside, watching the men as
+they strove together.  Aroused by the little feminine cries
+of wonder and the clapping of their ungloved palms, these
+latter began to show off at once.  They took off their coats
+and vests, even their neckties and collars, and worked
+themselves into a lather of perspiration for the sake of
+making an impression on their wives.  They ran hundred-yard
+sprints on the cinder path and executed clumsy feats on the
+rings and on the parallel bars.  They even found a huge
+round stone on the beach and "put the shot" for a while.  As
+long as it was a question of agility, Marcus was easily the
+best of the four; but the dentist's enormous strength, his
+crude, untutored brute force, was a matter of wonder for the
+entire party.  McTeague cracked English walnuts--taken from
+the lunch baskets--in the hollow of his arm, and tossed the
+round stone a full five feet beyond their best mark.  Heise
+believed himself to be particularly strong in the wrists,
+but the dentist, using but one hand, twisted a cane out of
+Heise's two with a wrench that all but sprained the harness-
+maker's arm.  Then the dentist raised weights and chinned
+himself on the rings till they thought he would never tire.
+
+His great success quite turned his head; he strutted back
+and forth in front of the women, his chest thrown out, and
+his great mouth perpetually expanded in a triumphant grin. 
+As he felt his strength more and more, he began to abuse it;
+he domineered over the others, gripping suddenly at their
+arms till they squirmed with pain, and slapping Marcus on
+the back so that he gasped and gagged for breath.  The
+childish vanity of the great fellow was as undisguised as
+that of a schoolboy.  He began to tell of wonderful feats of
+strength he had accomplished when he was a young man.  Why,
+at one time he had knocked down a half-grown heifer with
+a blow of his fist between the eyes, sure, and the
+heifer had just stiffened out and trembled all over and died
+without getting up.
+
+McTeague told this story again, and yet again.  All through
+the afternoon he could be overheard relating the wonder to
+any one who would listen, exaggerating the effect of his
+blow, inventing terrific details.  Why, the heifer had just
+frothed at the mouth, and his eyes had rolled up--ah, sure,
+his eyes rolled up just like that--and the butcher had said
+his skull was all mashed in--just all mashed in, sure,
+that's the word--just as if from a sledge-hammer.
+
+Notwithstanding his reconciliation with the dentist on the
+boat, Marcus's gorge rose within him at McTeague's boasting
+swagger. When McTeague had slapped him on the back, Marcus
+had retired to some little distance while he recovered his
+breath, and glared at the dentist fiercely as he strode up
+and down, glorying in the admiring glances of the women.
+
+"Ah, one-horse dentist," he muttered between his teeth. 
+"Ah, zinc-plugger, cow-killer, I'd like to show you once,
+you overgrown mucker, you--you--COW-KILLER!"
+
+When he rejoined the group, he found them preparing for a
+wrestling bout.
+
+"I tell you what," said Heise, "we'll have a tournament. 
+Marcus and I will rastle, and Doc and Ryer, and then the
+winners will rastle each other."
+
+The women clapped their hands excitedly.  This would be
+exciting.  Trina cried:
+
+"Better let me hold your money, Mac, and your keys, so as
+you won't lose them out of your pockets."  The men gave
+their valuables into the keeping of their wives and promptly
+set to work.
+
+The dentist thrust Ryer down without even changing his grip;
+Marcus and the harness-maker struggled together for a few
+moments till Heise all at once slipped on a bit of turf and
+fell backwards.  As they toppled over together, Marcus
+writhed himself from under his opponent, and, as they
+reached the ground, forced down first one shoulder and then
+the other.
+
+"All right, all right," panted the harness-maker, good-
+naturedly, "I'm down.  It's up to you and Doc now," he
+added, as he got to his feet.
+
+The match between McTeague and Marcus promised to be
+interesting.  The dentist, of course, had an enormous
+advantage in point of strength, but Marcus prided himself on
+his wrestling, and knew something about strangle-holds and
+half-Nelsons.  The men drew back to allow them a free space
+as they faced each other, while Trina and the other women
+rose to their feet in their excitement.
+
+"I bet Mac will throw him, all the same," said Trina.
+
+"All ready!" cried Ryer.
+
+The dentist and Marcus stepped forward, eyeing each other
+cautiously.  They circled around the impromptu ring.  Marcus
+watching eagerly for an opening.  He ground his teeth,
+telling himself he would throw McTeague if it killed him. 
+Ah, he'd show him now.  Suddenly the two men caught at each
+other; Marcus went to his knees.  The dentist threw his vast
+bulk on his adversary's shoulders and, thrusting a huge palm
+against his face, pushed him backwards and downwards.  It
+was out of the question to resist that enormous strength. 
+Marcus wrenched himself over and fell face downward on the
+ground.
+
+McTeague rose on the instant with a great laugh of
+exultation.
+
+"You're down!" he exclaimed.
+
+Marcus leaped to his feet.
+
+"Down nothing," he vociferated, with clenched fists.  "Down
+nothing, by damn!  You got to throw me so's my shoulders
+touch.
+
+McTeague was stalking about, swelling with pride.
+
+"Hoh, you're down.  I threw you.  Didn't I throw him, Trina?
+Hoh, you can't rastle ME."
+
+Marcus capered with rage.
+
+"You didn't! you didn't! you didn't! and you can't!  You got
+to give me another try."
+
+The other men came crowding up.  Everybody was talking at
+once.
+
+"He's right."
+
+"You didn't throw him."
+
+"Both his shoulders at the same time."
+
+Trina clapped and waved her hand at McTeague from where she
+stood on the little slope of lawn above the wrestlers. 
+Marcus broke through the group, shaking all over with
+excitement and rage.
+
+"I tell you that ain't the WAY to rastle.  You've got to
+throw a man so's his shoulders touch.  You got to give me 
+another bout."
+
+"That's straight," put in Heise, "both his shoulders down at
+the same time.  Try it again.  You and Schouler have another
+try."
+
+McTeague was bewildered by so much simultaneous talk.  He
+could not make out what it was all about.  Could he have
+offended Marcus again?
+
+"What?  What?  Huh?  What is it?" he exclaimed in
+perplexity, looking from one to the other.
+
+"Come on, you must rastle me again," shouted Marcus.
+
+"Sure, sure," cried the dentist.  "I'll rastle you again. 
+I'll rastle everybody," he cried, suddenly struck with an
+idea. Trina looked on in some apprehension.
+
+"Mark gets so mad," she said, half aloud.
+
+"Yes," admitted Selina.  "Mister Schouler's got an awful
+quick temper, but he ain't afraid of anything."
+
+"All ready!" shouted Ryer.
+
+This time Marcus was more careful.  Twice, as McTeague
+rushed at him, he slipped cleverly away.  But as the dentist
+came in a third time, with his head bowed, Marcus, raising
+himself to his full height, caught him with both arms around
+the neck.  The dentist gripped at him and rent away the
+sleeve of his shirt. There was a great laugh.
+
+"Keep your shirt on," cried Mrs. Ryer.
+
+The two men were grappling at each other wildly.  The party
+could hear them panting and grunting as they labored and
+struggled.  Their boots tore up great clods of turf. 
+Suddenly they came to the ground with a tremendous shock. 
+But even as they were in the act of falling, Marcus,
+like a very eel, writhed in the dentist's clasp and fell
+upon his side.  McTeague crashed down upon him like the
+collapse of a felled ox.
+
+"Now, you gotta turn him on his back," shouted Heise to the
+dentist.  "He ain't down if you don't."
+
+With his huge salient chin digging into Marcus's shoulder,
+the dentist heaved and tugged.  His face was flaming, his
+huge shock of yellow hair fell over his forehead, matted
+with sweat. Marcus began to yield despite his frantic
+efforts.  One shoulder was down, now the other began to go;
+gradually, gradually it was forced over.  The little
+audience held its breath in the suspense of the moment. 
+Selina broke the silence, calling out shrilly:
+
+"Ain't Doctor McTeague just that strong!"
+
+Marcus heard it, and his fury came instantly to a head. 
+Rage at his defeat at the hands of the dentist and before
+Selina's eyes, the hate he still bore his old-time "pal" and
+the impotent wrath of his own powerlessness were suddenly
+unleashed.
+
+"God damn you! get off of me," he cried under his breath,
+spitting the words as a snake spits its venom.  The little
+audience uttered a cry.  With the oath Marcus had twisted
+his head and had bitten through the lobe of the dentist's
+ear. There was a sudden flash of bright-red blood.
+
+Then followed a terrible scene.  The brute that in McTeague
+lay so close to the surface leaped instantly to life,
+monstrous, not to be resisted.  He sprang to his feet with a
+shrill and meaningless clamor, totally unlike the ordinary
+bass of his speaking tones.  It was the hideous yelling of a
+hurt beast, the squealing of a wounded elephant.  He framed
+no words; in the rush of high-pitched sound that issued from
+his wide-open mouth there was nothing articulate.  It was
+something no longer human; it was rather an echo from the
+jungle.
+
+Sluggish enough and slow to anger on ordinary occasions,
+McTeague when finally aroused became another man.  His rage
+was a kind of obsession, an evil mania, the drunkenness of
+passion, the exalted and perverted fury of the Berserker,
+blind and deaf, a thing insensate.
+
+As he rose he caught Marcus's wrist in both his hands.
+He did not strike, he did not know what he was doing.  His
+only idea was to batter the life out of the man before him,
+to crush and annihilate him upon the instant.  Gripping his
+enemy in his enormous hands, hard and knotted, and covered
+with a stiff fell of yellow hair--the hands of the old-time
+car-boy--he swung him wide, as a hammer-thrower swings his
+hammer.  Marcus's feet flipped from the ground, he spun
+through the air about McTeague as helpless as a bundle of
+clothes.  All at once there was a sharp snap, almost like
+the report of a small pistol.  Then Marcus rolled over and
+over upon the ground as McTeague released his grip; his arm,
+the one the dentist had seized, bending suddenly, as though
+a third joint had formed between wrist and elbow.  The arm
+was broken.
+
+But by this time every one was crying out at once.  Heise
+and Ryan ran in between the two men.  Selina turned her head
+away. Trina was wringing her hands and crying in an agony of
+dread:
+
+"Oh, stop them, stop them!  Don't let them fight.  Oh, it's
+too awful."
+
+"Here, here, Doc, quit.  Don't make a fool of yourself,"
+cried Heise, clinging to the dentist.  "That's enough now. 
+LISTEN to me, will you?"
+
+"Oh, Mac, Mac," cried Trina, running to her husband.  "Mac,
+dear, listen; it's me, it's Trina, look at me, you----"
+
+"Get hold of his other arm, will you, Ryer?" panted Heise.
+"Quick!"
+
+"Mac, Mac," cried Trina, her arms about his neck.
+
+"For God's sake, hold up, Doc, will you?" shouted the
+harness-maker.  "You don't want to kill him, do you?"
+
+Mrs. Ryer and Heise's lame wife were filling the air with
+their outcries.  Selina was giggling with hysteria.  Marcus,
+terrified, but too brave to run, had picked up a jagged
+stone with his left hand and stood on the defensive.  His
+swollen right arm, from which the shirt sleeve had been
+torn, dangled at his side, the back of the hand twisted
+where the palm should have been.  The shirt itself was a
+mass of grass stains and was spotted with the dentist's
+blood.
+
+But McTeague, in the centre of the group that struggled
+to hold him, was nigh to madness.  The side of his face, his
+neck, and all the shoulder and breast of his shirt were
+covered with blood.  He had ceased to cry out, but kept
+muttering between his gripped jaws, as he labored to tear
+himself free of the retaining hands:
+
+"Ah, I'll kill him!  Ah, I'll kill him!  I'll kill him!  
+Damn you, Heise," he exclaimed suddenly, trying to strike
+the harness-maker, "let go of me, will you!"
+
+Little by little they pacified him, or rather (for he paid
+but little attention to what was said to him) his bestial
+fury lapsed by degrees.  He turned away and let fall his
+arms, drawing long breaths, and looking stupidly about him,
+now searching helplessly upon the ground, now gazing vaguely
+into the circle of faces about him.  His ear bled as though
+it would never stop.
+
+"Say, Doctor," asked Heise, "what's the best thing to do?"
+
+"Huh?" answered McTeague.  "What--what do you mean?  What is
+it?"
+
+"What'll we do to stop this bleeding here?"
+
+McTeague did not answer, but looked intently at the blood-
+stained bosom of his shirt.
+
+"Mac," cried Trina, her face close to his, "tell us
+something--the best thing we can do to stop your ear
+bleeding."
+
+"Collodium," said the dentist.
+
+"But we can't get to that right away; we--"
+
+"There's some ice in our lunch basket," broke in Heise.  "We
+brought it for the beer; and take the napkins and make a
+bandage."
+
+"Ice," muttered the dentist, "sure, ice, that's the word."
+
+Mrs. Heise and the Ryers were looking after Marcus's broken
+arm.  Selina sat on the slope of the grass, gasping and
+sobbing. Trina tore the napkins into strips, and, crushing
+some of the ice, made a bandage for her husband's head.'
+
+The party resolved itself into two groups; the Ryers and
+Mrs. Heise bending over Marcus, while the harness-maker and
+Trina came and went about McTeague, sitting on the ground,
+his shirt, a mere blur of red and white, detaching itself
+violently from the background of pale-green grass.  Between
+the two groups was the torn and trampled bit of turf, the
+wrestling ring; the picnic baskets, together with empty beer
+bottles, broken egg-shells, and discarded sardine tins, were
+scattered here and there.  In the middle of the improvised
+wrestling ring the sleeve of Marcus's shirt fluttered
+occasionally in the sea breeze.
+
+Nobody was paying any attention to Selina.  All at once she
+began to giggle hysterically again, then cried out with a
+peal of laughter:
+
+"Oh, what a way for our picnic to end!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+
+"Now, then, Maria," said Zerkow, his cracked, strained voice
+just rising above a whisper, hitching his chair closer to
+the table, "now, then, my girl, let's have it all over
+again.  Tell us about the gold plate--the service.  Begin
+with, 'There were over a hundred pieces and every one of
+them gold.'"
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about, Zerkow," answered
+Maria.  "There never was no gold plate, no gold service.  I
+guess you must have dreamed it."
+
+Maria and the red-headed Polish Jew had been married about a
+month after the McTeague's picnic which had ended in such
+lamentable fashion.  Zerkow had taken Maria home to his
+wretched hovel in the alley back of the flat, and the flat
+had been obliged to get another maid of all work.  Time
+passed, a month, six months, a whole year went by.  At
+length Maria gave birth to a child, a wretched, sickly
+child, with not even strength enough nor wits enough to
+cry.  At the time of its birth Maria was out of her mind,
+and continued in a state of dementia for nearly ten days. 
+She recovered just in time to make the arrangements for the
+baby's burial.  Neither Zerkow nor Maria was much affected
+by either the birth or the death of this little child. 
+Zerkow had welcomed it with pronounced disfavor, since it
+had a mouth to be fed and wants to be provided for.  Maria
+was out of her head so much of the time that she could
+scarcely remember how it looked when alive.  The child was a
+mere incident in their lives, a thing that had come
+undesired and had gone unregretted.  It had not even a name;
+a strange, hybrid little being, come and gone within a
+fortnight's time, yet combining in its puny little body the
+blood of the Hebrew, the Pole, and the Spaniard.
+
+But the birth of this child had peculiar consequences. 
+Maria came out of her dementia, and in a few days the
+household settled itself again to its sordid regime and
+Maria went about her duties as usual.  Then one evening,
+about a week after the child's burial, Zerkow had asked
+Maria to tell him the story of the famous service of gold
+plate for the hundredth time.
+
+Zerkow had come to believe in this story infallibly.  He was
+immovably persuaded that at one time Maria or Maria's people
+had possessed these hundred golden dishes.  In his perverted
+mind the hallucination had developed still further.  Not
+only had that service of gold plate once existed, but it
+existed now, entire, intact; not a single burnished golden
+piece of it was missing.  It was somewhere, somebody had it,
+locked away in that leather trunk with its quilted lining
+and round brass locks.  It was to be searched for and
+secured, to be fought for, to be gained at all hazards. 
+Maria must know where it was; by dint of questioning, Zerkow
+would surely get the information from her. Some day, if only
+he was persistent, he would hit upon the right combination
+of questions, the right suggestion that would disentangle
+Maria's confused recollections.  Maria would tell him where
+the thing was kept, was concealed, was buried, and he would
+go to that place and secure it, and all that wonderful gold
+would be his forever and forever.  This service of plate had
+come to be Zerkow's mania.
+
+On this particular evening, about a week after the
+child's burial, in the wretched back room of the Junk shop,
+Zerkow had made Maria sit down to the table opposite him--
+the whiskey bottle and the red glass tumbler with its broken
+base between them--and had said:
+
+"Now, then, Maria, tell us that story of the gold dishes
+again."
+
+Maria stared at him, an expression of perplexity coming into
+her face.
+
+"What gold dishes?" said she.
+
+"The ones your people used to own in Central America.  Come
+on, Maria, begin, begin."  The Jew craned himself forward,
+his lean fingers clawing eagerly at his lips.
+
+"What gold plate?" said Maria, frowning at him as she drank
+her whiskey.  "What gold plate?  I don' know what you're
+talking about, Zerkow."
+
+Zerkow sat back in his chair, staring at her.
+
+"Why, your people's gold dishes, what they used to eat off
+of. You've told me about it a hundred times."
+
+"You're crazy, Zerkow," said Maria.  "Push the bottle here,
+will you?"
+
+"Come, now," insisted Zerkow, sweating with desire, "come,
+now, my girl, don't be a fool; let's have it, let's have it. 
+Begin now, 'There were more'n a hundred pieces, and every
+one of 'em gold.'  Oh, YOU know; come on, come on."
+
+"I don't remember nothing of the kind," protested Maria,
+reaching for the bottle.  Zerkow snatched it from her.
+
+"You fool!" he wheezed, trying to raise his broken voice to
+a shout.  "You fool!  Don't you dare try an' cheat ME, or
+I'll DO for you.  You know about the gold plate, and you
+know where it is."  Suddenly he pitched his voice at the
+prolonged rasping shout with which he made his street cry. 
+He rose to his feet, his long, prehensile fingers curled
+into fists.  He was menacing, terrible in his rage.  He
+leaned over Maria, his fists in her face.
+
+"I believe you've got it!" he yelled.  "I believe you've got
+it, an' are hiding it from me.  Where is it, where is it? Is
+it here?" he rolled his eyes wildly about the room.
+"Hey? hey?" he went on, shaking Maria by the shoulders. 
+"Where is it?  Is it here?  Tell me where it is.  Tell me,
+or I'll do for you!"
+
+"It ain't here," cried Maria, wrenching from him.  "It ain't
+anywhere.  What gold plate?  What are you talking about?  I
+don't remember nothing about no gold plate at all."
+
+No, Maria did not remember.  The trouble and turmoil of her
+mind consequent upon the birth of her child seemed to have
+readjusted her disordered ideas upon this point.  Her mania
+had come to a crisis, which in subsiding had cleared her
+brain of its one illusion.  She did not remember.  Or it was
+possible that the gold plate she had once remembered had had
+some foundation in fact, that her recital of its splendors
+had been truth, sound and sane.  It was possible that now
+her FORGETFULNESS of it was some form of brain trouble,
+a relic of the dementia of childbirth.  At all events Maria
+did not remember; the idea of the gold plate had passed
+entirely out of her mind, and it was now Zerkow who labored
+under its hallucination.  It was now Zerkow, the raker of
+the city's muck heap, the searcher after gold, that saw that
+wonderful service in the eye of his perverted mind.  It was
+he who could now describe it in a language almost eloquent. 
+Maria had been content merely to remember it; but Zerkow's
+avarice goaded him to a belief that it was still in
+existence, hid somewhere, perhaps in that very house, stowed
+away there by Maria.  For it stood to reason, didn't it,
+that Maria could not have described it with such wonderful
+accuracy and such careful detail unless she had seen it
+recently--the day before, perhaps, or that very day, or that
+very hour, that very HOUR?
+
+"Look out for yourself," he whispered, hoarsely, to his
+wife. "Look out for yourself, my girl.  I'll hunt for it,
+and hunt for it, and hunt for it, and some day I'll find it
+--I will, you'll see--I'll find it, I'll find it; and if
+I don't, I'll find a way that'll make you tell me where it
+is.  I'll make you speak--believe me, I will, I will, my
+girl--trust me for that."
+
+And at night Maria would sometimes wake to find Zerkow
+gone from the bed, and would see him burrowing into
+some corner by the light of his dark-lantern and would hear
+him mumbling to himself: "There were more'n a hundred
+pieces, and every one of 'em gold--when the leather trunk
+was opened it fair dazzled your eyes--why, just that punch-
+bowl was worth a fortune, I guess; solid, solid, heavy,
+rich, pure gold, nothun but gold, gold, heaps and heaps of
+it--what a glory!  I'll find it yet, I'll find it.  It's
+here somewheres, hid somewheres in this house."
+
+At length his continued ill success began to exasperate him.
+One day he took his whip from his junk wagon and thrashed
+Maria with it, gasping the while, "Where is it, you beast? 
+Where is it?  Tell me where it is; I'll make you speak."
+
+"I don' know, I don' know," cried Maria, dodging his blows.
+"I'd tell you, Zerkow, if I knew; but I don' know nothing
+about it.  How can I tell you if I don' know?"
+
+Then one evening matters reached a crisis.  Marcus Schouler
+was in his room, the room in the flat just over McTeague's
+"Parlors" which he had always occupied.  It was between
+eleven and twelve o'clock.  The vast house was quiet; Polk
+Street outside was very still, except for the occasional
+whirr and trundle of a passing cable car and the persistent
+calling of ducks and geese in the deserted market directly
+opposite.  Marcus was in his shirt sleeves, perspiring and
+swearing with exertion as he tried to get all his belongings
+into an absurdly inadequate trunk.  The room was in great
+confusion.  It looked as though Marcus was about to move. 
+He stood in front of his trunk, his precious silk hat in its
+hat-box in his hand.  He was raging at the perverseness of a
+pair of boots that refused to fit in his trunk, no matter
+how he arranged them.
+
+"I've tried you SO, and I've tried you SO," he
+exclaimed fiercely, between his teeth, "and you won't go."  
+He began to swear horribly, grabbing at the boots with his
+free hand. "Pretty soon I won't take you at all; I won't,
+for a fact."
+
+He was interrupted by a rush of feet upon the back stairs
+and a clamorous pounding upon his door.  He opened it to let
+in Maria Macapa, her hair dishevelled and her eyes starting
+with terror.
+
+"Oh, MISTER Schouler," she gasped, "lock the door
+quick. Don't let him get me.  He's got a knife, and he says
+sure he's going to do for me, if I don't tell him where it
+is."
+
+"Who has?  What has?  Where is what?" shouted Marcus,
+flaming with excitement upon the instant.  He opened the
+door and peered down the dark hall, both fists clenched,
+ready to fight--he did not know whom, and he did not know
+why.
+
+"It's Zerkow," wailed Maria, pulling him back into the room
+and bolting the door, "and he's got a knife as long as
+THAT. Oh, my Lord, here he comes now!  Ain't that him?
+Listen."
+
+Zerkow was coming up the stairs, calling for Maria.
+
+"Don't you let him get me, will you, Mister Schouler?"
+gasped Maria.
+
+"I'll break him in two," shouted Marcus, livid with rage.
+"Think I'm afraid of his knife?"
+
+"I know where you are," cried Zerkow, on the landing
+outside. "You're in Schouler's room.  What are you doing in
+Schouler's room at this time of night?  Come outa there; you
+oughta be ashamed.  I'll do for you yet, my girl.  Come outa
+there once, an' see if I don't."
+
+"I'll do for you myself, you dirty Jew," shouted Marcus,
+unbolting the door and running out into the hall.
+
+"I want my wife," exclaimed the Jew, backing down the
+stairs. "What's she mean by running away from me and going
+into your room?"
+
+"Look out, he's got a knife!" cried Maria through the crack
+of the door.
+
+"Ah, there you are.  Come outa that, and come back home,"
+exclaimed Zerkow.
+
+"Get outa here yourself," cried Marcus, advancing on him
+angrily.  "Get outa here."
+
+"Maria's gota come too."
+
+"Get outa here," vociferated Marcus, "an' put up that knife. 
+I see it; you needn't try an' hide it behind your leg.
+Give it to me, anyhow," he shouted suddenly, and before
+Zerkow was aware, Marcus had wrenched it away.  "Now, get
+outa here."
+
+Zerkow backed away, peering and peeping over Marcus's
+shoulder.
+
+"I want Maria."
+
+"Get outa here.  Get along out, or I'll PUT you out."
+The street door closed.  The Jew was gone.
+
+"Huh!" snorted Marcus, swelling with arrogance.  "Huh!  
+Think I'm afraid of his knife?  I ain't afraid of
+ANYBODY," he shouted pointedly, for McTeague and his wife,
+roused by the clamor, were peering over the banisters from
+the landing above. "Not of anybody," repeated Marcus.
+
+Maria came out into the hall.
+
+"Is he gone?  Is he sure gone?"
+
+"What was the trouble?" inquired Marcus, suddenly.
+
+"I woke up about an hour ago," Maria explained, "and Zerkow
+wasn't in bed; maybe he hadn't come to bed at all.  He was
+down on his knees by the sink, and he'd pried up some boards
+off the floor and was digging there.  He had his dark-
+lantern.  He was digging with that knife, I guess, and all
+the time he kept mumbling to himself, 'More'n a hundred
+pieces, an' every one of 'em gold; more'n a hundred pieces,
+an' every one of 'em gold.' Then, all of a sudden, he caught
+sight of me.  I was sitting up in bed, and he jumped up and
+came at me with his knife, an' he says, 'Where is it?  Where
+is it?  I know you got it hid somewhere.  Where is it?  Tell
+me or I'll knife you.'  I kind of fooled him and kept him
+off till I got my wrapper on, an' then I run out.  I didn't
+dare stay."
+
+"Well, what did you tell him about your gold dishes for in
+the first place?" cried Marcus.
+
+"I never told him," protested Maria, with the greatest
+energy. "I never told him; I never heard of any gold dishes. 
+I don' know where he got the idea; he must be crazy."
+
+By this time Trina and McTeague, Old Grannis, and little
+Miss Baker--all the lodgers on the upper floors of the flat
+--had gathered about Maria.  Trina and the dentist, who had
+gone to bed, were partially dressed, and Trina's enormous
+mane of black hair was hanging in two thick braids far down
+her back.  But, late as it was, Old Grannis and the
+retired dressmaker had still been up and about when Maria
+had aroused them.
+
+"Why, Maria," said Trina, "you always used to tell us about
+your gold dishes.  You said your folks used to have them."
+
+"Never, never, never!" exclaimed Maria, vehemently.  "You
+folks must all be crazy.  I never HEARD of any gold
+dishes."
+
+"Well," spoke up Miss Baker, "you're a queer girl, Maria;
+that's all I can say."  She left the group and returned to
+her room. Old Grannis watched her go from the corner of his
+eye, and in a few moments followed her, leaving the group as
+unnoticed as he had joined it.  By degrees the flat quieted
+down again.  Trina and McTeague returned to their rooms.
+
+"I guess I'll go back now," said Maria.  "He's all right
+now.  I ain't afraid of him so long as he ain't got his
+knife."
+
+"Well, say," Marcus called to her as she went down stairs,
+"if he gets funny again, you just yell out; I'LL hear
+you.  I won't let him hurt you."
+
+Marcus went into his room again and resumed his wrangle with
+the refractory boots.  His eye fell on Zerkow's knife, a
+long, keen-bladed hunting-knife, with a buckhorn handle. 
+"I'll take you along with me," he exclaimed, suddenly. 
+"I'll just need you where I'm going."
+
+Meanwhile, old Miss Baker was making tea to calm her nerves
+after the excitement of Maria's incursion.  This evening she
+went so far as to make tea for two, laying an extra place on
+the other side of her little teatable, setting out a cup and
+saucer and one of the Gorham silver spoons.  Close upon the
+other side of the partition Old Grannis bound uncut numbers
+of the "Nation."
+
+"Do you know what I think, Mac?" said Trina, when the couple
+had returned to their rooms.  "I think Marcus is going
+away."
+
+"What?  What?" muttered the dentist, very sleepy and stupid,
+"what you saying?  What's that about Marcus?"
+
+"I believe Marcus has been packing up, the last two or three
+days.  I wonder if he's going away."
+
+"Who's going away?" said McTeague, blinking at her.
+
+"Oh, go to bed," said Trina, pushing him goodnaturedly.
+"Mac, you're the stupidest man I ever knew."
+
+But it was true.  Marcus was going away.  Trina received a
+letter the next morning from her mother.  The carpet-
+cleaning and upholstery business in which Mr. Sieppe had
+involved himself was going from bad to worse.  Mr. Sieppe
+had even been obliged to put a mortgage upon their house. 
+Mrs. Sieppe didn't know what was to become of them all.  Her
+husband had even begun to talk of emigrating to New Zealand. 
+Meanwhile, she informed Trina that Mr. Sieppe had finally
+come across a man with whom Marcus could "go in with on a
+ranch," a cattle ranch in the southeastern portion of the
+State.  Her ideas were vague upon the subject, but she knew
+that Marcus was wildly enthusiastic at the prospect, and was
+expected down before the end of the month.  In the meantime,
+could Trina send them fifty dollars?
+
+"Marcus IS going away, after all, Mac," said Trina to
+her husband that day as he came out of his "Parlors" and sat
+down to the lunch of sausages, mashed potatoes, and
+chocolate in the sitting-room.
+
+"Huh?" said the dentist, a little confused.  "Who's going
+away? Schouler going away?  Why's Schouler going away?"
+
+Trina explained.  "Oh!" growled McTeague, behind his thick
+mustache, "he can go far before I'LL stop him."
+
+"And, say, Mac," continued Trina, pouring the chocolate,
+"what do you think?  Mamma wants me--wants us to send her
+fifty dollars.  She says they're hard up."
+
+"Well," said the dentist, after a moment, "well, I guess we
+can send it, can't we?"
+
+"Oh, that's easy to say," complained Trina, her little chin
+in the air, her small pale lips pursed.  "I wonder if mamma
+thinks we're millionaires?"
+
+"Trina, you're getting to be regular stingy," muttered
+McTeague.  "You're getting worse and worse every day."
+
+"But fifty dollars is fifty dollars, Mac.  Just think how
+long it takes you to earn fifty dollars.  Fifty dollars!  
+That's two months of our interest."
+
+"Well," said McTeague, easily, his mouth full of mashed
+potato, "you got a lot saved up."
+
+Upon every reference to that little hoard in the brass
+match-safe and chamois-skin bag at the bottom of her trunk,
+Trina bridled on the instant.
+
+"Don't TALK that way, Mac.  'A lot of money.'  What do
+you call a lot of money?  I don't believe I've got fifty
+dollars saved."
+
+"Hoh!" exclaimed McTeague.  "Hoh!  I guess you got nearer a
+hundred AN' fifty.  That's what I guess YOU got."
+
+"I've NOT, I've NOT," declared Trina, "and you know
+I've not.  I wish mamma hadn't asked me for any money.  Why
+can't she be a little more economical?  I manage all
+right.  No, no, I can't possibly afford to send her fifty."
+
+"Oh, pshaw!  What WILL you do, then?" grumbled her
+husband.
+
+"I'll send her twenty-five this month, and tell her I'll
+send the rest as soon as I can afford it."
+
+"Trina, you're a regular little miser," said McTeague.
+
+"I don't care," answered Trina, beginning to laugh.  "I
+guess I am, but I can't help it, and it's a good fault."
+
+Trina put off sending this money for a couple of weeks, and
+her mother made no mention of it in her next letter.  "Oh, I
+guess if she wants it so bad," said Trina, "she'll speak
+about it again."  So she again postponed the sending of it. 
+Day by day she put it off.  When her mother asked her for it
+a second time, it seemed harder than ever for Trina to part
+with even half the sum requested.  She answered her mother,
+telling her that they were very hard up themselves for that
+month, but that she would send down the amount in a few
+weeks.
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do, Mac," she said to her husband,
+"you send half and I'll send half; we'll send twenty-five
+dollars altogether.  Twelve and a half apiece.  That's an
+idea. How will that do?"
+
+"Sure, sure," McTeague had answered, giving her the money.
+Trina sent McTeague's twelve dollars, but never sent the
+twelve that was to be her share.  One day the dentist
+happened to ask her about it.
+
+"You sent that twenty-five to your mother, didn't you?" said
+he.
+
+"Oh, long ago," answered Trina, without thinking.
+
+In fact, Trina never allowed herself to think very much of
+this affair.  And, in fact, another matter soon came to
+engross her attention.
+
+One Sunday evening Trina and her husband were in their
+sitting-room together.  It was dark, but the lamp had not
+been lit.  McTeague had brought up some bottles of beer from
+the "Wein Stube" on the ground floor, where the branch post-
+office used to be.  But they had not opened the beer.  It
+was a warm evening in summer.  Trina was sitting on
+McTeague's lap in the bay window, and had looped back the
+Nottingham curtains so the two could look out into the
+darkened street and watch the moon coming up over the glass
+roof of the huge public baths.  On occasions they sat like
+this for an hour or so, "philandering," Trina cuddling
+herself down upon McTeague's enormous body, rubbing her
+cheek against the grain of his unshaven chin, kissing the
+bald spot on the top of his head, or putting her fingers
+into his ears and eyes.  At times, a brusque access of
+passion would seize upon her, and, with a nervous little
+sigh, she would clasp his thick red neck in both her small
+arms and whisper in his ear:
+
+"Do you love me, Mac, dear?  Love me BIG, BIG?
+Sure, do you love me as much as you did when we were
+married?"
+
+Puzzled, McTeague would answer: "Well, you know it, don't
+you, Trina?"
+
+"But I want you to SAY so; say so always and always."
+
+"Well, I do, of course I do."
+
+"Say it, then."
+
+"Well, then, I love you."
+
+"But you don't say it of your own accord."
+
+"Well, what--what--what--I don't understand," stammered the
+dentist, bewildered.
+
+There was a knock on the door.  Confused and
+embarrassed, as if they were not married, Trina scrambled
+off McTeague's lap, hastening to light the lamp, whispering,
+"Put on your coat, Mac, and smooth your hair," and making
+gestures for him to put the beer bottles out of sight.  She
+opened the door and uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Why, Cousin Mark!" she said.  McTeague glared at him,
+struck speechless, confused beyond expression.  Marcus
+Schouler, perfectly at his ease, stood in the doorway,
+smiling with great affability.
+
+"Say," he remarked, "can I come in?"
+
+Taken all aback, Trina could only answer:
+
+"Why--I suppose so.  Yes, of course--come in."
+
+"Yes, yes, come in," exclaimed the dentist, suddenly,
+speaking without thought.  "Have some beer?" he added,
+struck with an idea.
+
+"No, thanks, Doctor," said Marcus, pleasantly.
+
+McTeague and Trina were puzzled.  What could it all mean? 
+Did Marcus want to become reconciled to his enemy?  "I
+know."  Trina said to herself.  "He's going away, and he
+wants to borrow some money.  He won't get a penny, not a
+penny."  She set her teeth together hard.
+
+"Well," said Marcus, "how's business, Doctor?"
+
+"Oh," said McTeague, uneasily, "oh, I don' know.  I guess--I
+guess," he broke off in helpless embarrassment.  They had
+all sat down by now.  Marcus continued, holding his hat and
+his cane--the black wand of ebony with the gold top
+presented to him by the "Improvement Club."
+
+"Ah!" said he, wagging his head and looking about the
+sitting-room, "you people have got the best fixed rooms in
+the whole flat.  Yes, sir; you have, for a fact."  He
+glanced from the lithograph framed in gilt and red plush--
+the two little girls at their prayers--to the "I'm Grandpa"
+and "I'm Grandma" pictures, noted the clean white matting
+and the gay worsted tidies over the chair backs, and
+appeared to contemplate in ecstasy the framed
+photograph of McTeague and Trina in their wedding finery.
+
+"Well, you two are pretty happy together, ain't you?" said
+he, smiling good-humoredly.
+
+"Oh, we don't complain," answered Trina.
+
+"Plenty of money, lots to do, everything fine, hey?"
+
+"We've got lots to do," returned Trina, thinking to head him
+off, "but we've not got lots of money."
+
+But evidently Marcus wanted no money.
+
+"Well, Cousin Trina," he said, rubbing his knee, "I'm going
+away."
+
+"Yes, mamma wrote me; you're going on a ranch."
+
+"I'm going in ranching with an English duck," corrected
+Marcus. "Mr. Sieppe has fixed things.  We'll see if we can't
+raise some cattle.  I know a lot about horses, and he's
+ranched some before--this English duck.  And then I'm going
+to keep my eye open for a political chance down there.  I
+got some introductions from the President of the Improvement
+Club.  I'll work things somehow, oh, sure."
+
+"How long you going to be gone?" asked Trina.
+
+Marcus stared.
+
+"Why, I ain't EVER coming back," he vociferated.  "I'm
+going to-morrow, and I'm going for good.  I come to say
+good-by."
+
+Marcus stayed for upwards of an hour that evening.  He
+talked on easily and agreeably, addressing himself as much
+to McTeague as to Trina.  At last he rose.
+
+"Well, good-by, Doc."
+
+"Good-by, Marcus," returned McTeague.  The two shook hands.
+
+"Guess we won't ever see each other again," continued
+Marcus. "But good luck to you, Doc.  Hope some day you'll
+have the patients standing in line on the stairs."
+
+"Huh!  I guess so, I guess so," said the dentist.
+
+"Good-by, Cousin Trina."
+
+"Good-by, Marcus," answered Trina.  "You be sure to
+remember me to mamma, and papa, and everybody.  I'm
+going to make two great big sets of Noah's ark animals for
+the twins on their next birthday; August is too old for
+toys.  But you can tell the twins that I'll make them some
+great big animals.  Good-by, success to you, Marcus."
+
+"Good-by, good-by.  Good luck to you both."
+
+"Good-by, Cousin Mark."
+
+"Good-by, Marcus."
+
+He was gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+
+One morning about a week after Marcus had left for the
+southern part of the State, McTeague found an oblong letter
+thrust through the letter-drop of the door of his "Parlors."
+The address was typewritten.  He opened it.  The letter had
+been sent from the City Hall and was stamped in one corner
+with the seal of the State of California, very official; the
+form and file numbers superscribed.
+
+McTeague had been making fillings when this letter arrived. 
+He was in his "Parlors," pottering over his movable rack
+underneath the bird cage in the bay window.  He was making
+"blocks" to be used in large proximal cavities and
+"cylinders" for commencing fillings.  He heard the postman's
+step in the hall and saw the envelopes begin to shuttle
+themselves through the slit of his letter-drop.  Then came
+the fat oblong envelope, with its official seal, that
+dropped flatwise to the floor with a sodden, dull impact.
+
+The dentist put down the broach and scissors and gathered
+up his mail.  There were four letters altogether.  One
+was for Trina, in Selina's "elegant" handwriting; another
+was an advertisement of a new kind of operating chair for
+dentists; the third was a card from a milliner on the next
+block, announcing an opening; and the fourth, contained in
+the fat oblong envelope, was a printed form with blanks left
+for names and dates, and addressed to McTeague, from an
+office in the City Hall.  McTeague read it through
+laboriously.  "I don' know, I don' know," he muttered,
+looking stupidly at the rifle manufacturer's calendar.  Then
+he heard Trina, from the kitchen, singing as she made a
+clattering noise with the breakfast dishes.  "I guess I'll
+ask Trina about it," he muttered.
+
+He went through the suite, by the sitting-room, where the
+sun was pouring in through the looped backed Nottingham
+curtains upon the clean white matting and the varnished
+surface of the melodeon, passed on through the bedroom, with
+its framed lithographs of round-cheeked English babies and
+alert fox terriers, and came out into the brick-paved
+kitchen.  The kitchen was clean as a new whistle; the
+freshly blackened cook stove glowed like a negro's hide; the
+tins and porcelain-lined stew-pans might have been of silver
+and of ivory.  Trina was in the centre of the room, wiping
+off, with a damp sponge, the oilcloth table-cover, on which
+they had breakfasted.  Never had she looked so pretty. 
+Early though it was, her enormous tiara of swarthy hair was
+neatly combed and coiled, not a pin was so much as loose. 
+She wore a blue calico skirt with a white figure, and a belt
+of imitation alligator skin clasped around her small,
+firmly-corseted waist; her shirt waist was of pink linen, so
+new and crisp that it crackled with every movement, while
+around the collar, tied in a neat knot, was one of
+McTeague's lawn ties which she had appropriated.  Her
+sleeves were carefully rolled up almost to her shoulders,
+and nothing could have been more delicious than the sight of
+her small round arms, white as milk, moving back and forth
+as she sponged the table-cover, a faint touch of pink coming
+and going at the elbows as they bent and straightened.  She
+looked up quickly as her husband entered, her narrow eyes
+alight, her adorable little chin in the air; her lips
+rounded and opened with the last words of her song, so
+that one could catch a glint of gold in the fillings of her
+upper teeth.
+
+The whole scene--the clean kitchen and its clean brick
+floor; the smell of coffee that lingered in the air; Trina
+herself, fresh as if from a bath, and singing at her work;
+the morning sun, striking obliquely through the white muslin
+half-curtain of the window and spanning the little kitchen
+with a bridge of golden mist--gave off, as it were, a note
+of gayety that was not to be resisted.  Through the opened
+top of the window came the noises of Polk Street, already
+long awake.  One heard the chanting of street cries, the
+shrill calling of children on their way to school, the merry
+rattle of a butcher's cart, the brisk noise of hammering, or
+the occasional prolonged roll of a cable car trundling
+heavily past, with a vibrant whirring of its jostled glass
+and the joyous clanging of its bells.
+
+"What is it, Mac, dear?" said Trina.
+
+McTeague shut the door behind him with his heel and handed
+her the letter.  Trina read it through.  Then suddenly her
+small hand gripped tightly upon the sponge, so that the
+water started from it and dripped in a little pattering
+deluge upon the bricks.
+
+The letter--or rather printed notice--informed McTeague that
+he had never received a diploma from a dental college, and
+that in consequence he was forbidden to practise his
+profession any longer.  A legal extract bearing upon the
+case was attached in small type.
+
+"Why, what's all this?" said Trina, calmly, without thought
+as yet.
+
+"I don' know, I don' know," answered her husband.
+
+"You can't practise any longer," continued Trina,--"'is
+herewith prohibited and enjoined from further continuing----
+'" She re-read the extract, her forehead lifting and
+puckering.  She put the sponge carefully away in its wire
+rack over the sink, and drew up a chair to the table,
+spreading out the notice before her. "Sit down," she said to
+McTeague.  "Draw up to the table here, Mac, and let's see
+what this is."
+
+"I got it this morning," murmured the dentist.  "It just now
+came.  I was making some fillings--there, in the
+'Parlors,' in the window--and the postman shoved it through
+the door.  I thought it was a number of the 'American System
+of Dentistry' at first, and when I'd opened it and looked at
+it I thought I'd better----"
+
+"Say, Mac," interrupted Trina, looking up from the notice,
+"DIDN'T you ever go to a dental college?"
+
+"Huh?  What?  What?" exclaimed McTeague.
+
+"How did you learn to be a dentist?  Did you go to a
+college?"
+
+"I went along with a fellow who came to the mine once.  My
+mother sent me.  We used to go from one camp to another.  I
+sharpened his excavators for him, and put up his notices in
+the towns--stuck them up in the post-offices and on the
+doors of the Odd Fellows' halls.  He had a wagon."
+
+"But didn't you never go to a college?"
+
+"Huh?  What?  College?  No, I never went.  I learned from
+the fellow."
+
+Trina rolled down her sleeves.  She was a little paler than
+usual.  She fastened the buttons into the cuffs and said:
+
+"But do you know you can't practise unless you're graduated
+from a college?  You haven't the right to call yourself,
+'doctor.'"
+
+McTeague stared a moment; then:
+
+"Why, I've been practising ten years.  More--nearly twelve."
+
+"But it's the law."
+
+"What's the law?"
+
+"That you can't practise, or call yourself doctor, unless
+you've got a diploma."
+
+"What's that--a diploma?"
+
+"I don't know exactly.  It's a kind of paper that--that--oh,
+Mac, we're ruined."  Trina's voice rose to a cry.
+
+"What do you mean, Trina?  Ain't I a dentist?  Ain't I a
+doctor?  Look at my sign, and the gold tooth you gave me. 
+Why, I've been practising nearly twelve years."
+
+Trina shut her lips tightly, cleared her throat, and
+pretended to resettle a hair-pin at the back of her head.
+
+"I guess it isn't as bad as that," she said, very quietly.
+"Let's read this again.  'Herewith prohibited and
+enjoined from further continuing----'"  She read to the end.
+
+"Why, it isn't possible," she cried.  "They can't mean--oh,
+Mac, I do believe--pshaw!" she exclaimed, her pale face
+flushing.  "They don't know how good a dentist you are. 
+What difference does a diploma make, if you're a first-class
+dentist?  I guess that's all right.  Mac, didn't you ever go
+to a dental college?"
+
+"No," answered McTeague, doggedly.  "What was the good?  I
+learned how to operate; wa'n't that enough?"
+
+"Hark," said Trina, suddenly.  "Wasn't that the bell of your
+office?"  They had both heard the jangling of the bell that
+McTeague had hung over the door of his "Parlors."  The
+dentist looked at the kitchen clock.
+
+"That's Vanovitch," said he.  "He's a plumber round on
+Sutter Street.  He's got an appointment with me to have a
+bicuspid pulled.  I got to go back to work."  He rose.
+
+"But you can't," cried Trina, the back of her hand upon her
+lips, her eyes brimming.  "Mac, don't you see?  Can't you
+understand?  You've got to stop.  Oh, it's dreadful!  
+Listen."  She hurried around the table to him and caught his
+arm in both her hands.
+
+"Huh?" growled McTeague, looking at her with a puzzled
+frown.
+
+"They'll arrest you.  You'll go to prison.  You can't work--
+can't work any more.  We're ruined."
+
+Vanovitch was pounding on the door of the sitting-room.
+
+"He'll be gone in a minute," exclaimed McTeague.
+
+"Well, let him go.  Tell him to go; tell him to come again."
+
+"Why, he's got an APPOINTMENT with me," exclaimed
+McTeague, his hand upon the door.
+
+Trina caught him back.  "But, Mac, you ain't a dentist any
+longer; you ain't a doctor.  You haven't the right to work. 
+You never went to a dental college."
+
+"Well, suppose I never went to a college, ain't I a dentist
+just the same?  Listen, he's pounding there again.  No, I'm
+going, sure."
+
+"Well, of course, go," said Trina, with sudden reaction. 
+"It ain't possible they'll make you stop.  If you're a
+good dentist, that's all that's wanted.  Go on, Mac; hurry,
+before he goes."
+
+McTeague went out, closing the door.  Trina stood for a
+moment looking intently at the bricks at her feet.  Then she
+returned to the table, and sat down again before the notice,
+and, resting her head in both her fists, read it yet another
+time.  Suddenly the conviction seized upon her that it was
+all true.  McTeague would be obliged to stop work, no matter
+how good a dentist he was.  But why had the authorities at
+the City Hall waited this long before serving the notice? 
+All at once Trina snapped her fingers, with a quick flash of
+intelligence.
+
+"It's Marcus that's done it," she cried.
+
+*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+
+It was like a clap of thunder.  McTeague was stunned,
+stupefied.  He said nothing.  Never in his life had he been
+so taciturn. At times he did not seem to hear Trina when she
+spoke to him, and often she had to shake him by the shoulder
+to arouse his attention.  He would sit apart in his
+"Parlors," turning the notice about in his enormous clumsy
+fingers, reading it stupidly over and over again.  He
+couldn't understand.  What had a clerk at the City Hall to
+do with him?  Why couldn't they let him alone?
+
+"Oh, what's to become of us NOW?" wailed Trina.  "What's
+to become of us now?  We're paupers, beggars--and all so
+sudden."  And once, in a quick, inexplicable fury, totally
+unlike anything that McTeague had noticed in her before, she
+had started up, with fists and teeth shut tight, and had
+cried, "Oh, if you'd only KILLED Marcus Schouler that
+time he fought you!"
+
+McTeague had continued his work, acting from sheer force of
+habit; his sluggish, deliberate nature, methodical,
+obstinate, refusing to adapt itself to the new conditions.
+
+"Maybe Marcus was only trying to scare us," Trina had said.
+"How are they going to know whether you're practising or
+not?"
+
+"I got a mould to make to-morrow," McTeague said, "and
+Vanovitch, that plumber round on Sutter Street, he's
+coming again at three."
+
+"Well, you go right ahead," Trina told him, decisively; "you
+go right ahead and make the mould, and pull every tooth in
+Vanovitch's head if you want to.  Who's going to know? 
+Maybe they just sent that notice as a matter of form.  Maybe
+Marcus got that paper and filled it in himself."
+
+The two would lie awake all night long, staring up into the
+dark, talking, talking, talking.
+
+"Haven't you got any right to practise if you've not been to
+a dental college, Mac?  Didn't you ever go?" Trina would ask
+again and again.
+
+"No, no," answered the dentist, "I never went.  I learnt
+from the fellow I was apprenticed to.  I don' know anything
+about a dental college.  Ain't I got a right to do as I
+like?" he suddenly exclaimed.
+
+"If you know your profession, isn't that enough?" cried
+Trina.
+
+"Sure, sure," growled McTeague.  "I ain't going to stop for
+them."
+
+"You go right on," Trina said, "and I bet you won't hear
+another word about it."
+
+"Suppose I go round to the City Hall and see them," hazarded
+McTeague.
+
+"No, no, don't you do it, Mac," exclaimed Trina.  "Because,
+if Marcus has done this just to scare you, they won't know
+anything about it there at the City Hall; but they'll begin
+to ask you questions, and find out that you never HAD
+graduated from a dental college, and you'd be just as bad
+off as ever."
+
+"Well, I ain't going to quit for just a piece of paper,"
+declared the dentist.  The phrase stuck to him.  All day
+long he went about their rooms or continued at his work in
+the "Parlors," growling behind his thick mustache: "I ain't
+going to quit for just a piece of paper.  No, I ain't going
+to quit for just a piece of paper.  Sure not."
+
+The days passed, a week went by, McTeague continued his
+work as usual.  They heard no more from the City Hall,
+but the suspense of the situation was harrowing.  Trina was
+actually sick with it.  The terror of the thing was ever at
+their elbows, going to bed with them, sitting down with them
+at breakfast in the kitchen, keeping them company all
+through the day.  Trina dared not think of what would be
+their fate if the income derived from McTeague's practice
+was suddenly taken from them.  Then they would have to fall
+back on the interest of her lottery money and the pittance
+she derived from the manufacture of the Noah's ark animals,
+a little over thirty dollars a month.  No, no, it was not to
+be thought of.  It could not be that their means of
+livelihood was to be thus stricken from them.
+
+A fortnight went by.  "I guess we're all right, Mac," Trina
+allowed herself to say.  "It looks as though we were all
+right. How are they going to tell whether you're practising
+or not?"
+
+That day a second and much more peremptory notice was served
+upon McTeague by an official in person.  Then suddenly Trina
+was seized with a panic terror, unreasoned, instinctive.  If
+McTeague persisted they would both be sent to a prison, she
+was sure of it; a place where people were chained to the
+wall, in the dark, and fed on bread and water.
+
+"Oh, Mac, you've got to quit," she wailed.  "You can't go
+on. They can make you stop.  Oh, why didn't you go to a
+dental college?  Why didn't you find out that you had to
+have a college degree?  And now we're paupers, beggars. 
+We've got to leave here--leave this flat where I've been--
+where WE'VE been so happy, and sell all the pretty
+things; sell the pictures and the melodeon, and--Oh, it's
+too dreadful!"
+
+"Huh?  Huh?  What?  What?" exclaimed the dentist,
+bewildered. "I ain't going to quit for just a piece of
+paper.  Let them put me out.  I'll show them.  They--they
+can't make small of me."
+
+"Oh, that's all very fine to talk that way, but you'll have
+to quit."
+
+"Well, we ain't paupers," McTeague suddenly exclaimed, an
+idea entering his mind.  "We've got our money yet.  You've
+got your five thousand dollars and the money you've been
+saving up. People ain't paupers when they've got over
+five thousand dollars."
+
+"What do you mean, Mac?" cried Trina, apprehensively.
+
+"Well, we can live on THAT money until--until--until--"
+he broke off with an uncertain movement of his shoulders,
+looking about him stupidly.
+
+"Until WHEN?" cried Trina.  "There ain't ever going to
+be any 'until.' We've got the INTEREST of that five
+thousand and we've got what Uncle Oelbermann gives me, a
+little over thirty dollars a month, and that's all we've
+got.  You'll have to find something else to do."
+
+"What will I find to do?"
+
+What, indeed? McTeague was over thirty now, sluggish and
+slow-witted at best.  What new trade could he learn at this
+age?
+
+Little by little Trina made the dentist understand the
+calamity that had befallen them, and McTeague at last began
+cancelling his appointments.  Trina gave it out that he was
+sick.
+
+"Not a soul need know what's happened to us," she said to
+her husband.
+
+But it was only by slow degrees that McTeague abandoned his
+profession.  Every morning after breakfast he would go into
+his "Parlors" as usual and potter about his instruments, his
+dental engine, and his washstand in the corner behind his
+screen where he made his moulds.  Now he would sharpen a
+"hoe" excavator, now he would busy himself for a whole hour
+making "mats" and "cylinders."  Then he would look over his
+slate where he kept a record of his appointments.
+
+One day Trina softly opened the door of the "Parlors" and
+came in from the sitting-room.  She had not heard McTeague
+moving about for some time and had begun to wonder what he
+was doing. She came in, quietly shutting the door behind
+her.
+
+McTeague had tidied the room with the greatest care.  The
+volumes of the "Practical Dentist" and the "American System
+of Dentistry" were piled upon the marble-top centre-table in
+rectangular blocks.  The few chairs were drawn up against
+the wall under the steel engraving of "Lorenzo de'
+Medici" with more than usual precision.  The dental engine
+and the nickelled trimmings of the operating chair had been
+furbished till they shone, while on the movable rack in the
+bay window McTeague had arranged his instruments with the
+greatest neatness and regularity.  "Hoe" excavators,
+pluggers, forceps, pliers, corundum disks and burrs, even
+the boxwood mallet that Trina was never to use again, all
+were laid out and ready for immediate use.
+
+McTeague himself sat in his operating chair, looking
+stupidly out of the windows, across the roofs opposite, with
+an unseeing gaze, his red hands lying idly in his lap. 
+Trina came up to him.  There was something in his eyes that
+made her put both arms around his neck and lay his huge head
+with its coarse blond hair upon her shoulder.
+
+"I--I got everything fixed," he said.  "I got everything
+fixed an' ready.  See, everything ready an' waiting, an'--
+an'--an' nobody comes, an' nobody's ever going to come any
+more.  Oh, Trina!"  He put his arms about her and drew her
+down closer to him.
+
+"Never mind, dear; never mind," cried Trina, through her
+tears. "It'll all come right in the end, and we'll be poor
+together if we have to.  You can sure find something else to
+do.  We'll start in again."
+
+"Look at the slate there," said McTeague, pulling away from
+her and reaching down the slate on which he kept a record of
+his appointments.  "Look at them.  There's Vanovitch at two
+on Wednesday, and Loughhead's wife Thursday morning, and
+Heise's little girl Thursday afternoon at one-thirty; Mrs.
+Watson on Friday, and Vanovitch again Saturday morning
+early--at seven. That's what I was to have had, and they
+ain't going to come. They ain't ever going to come any
+more."
+
+Trina took the little slate from him and looked at it
+ruefully.
+
+"Rub them out," she said, her voice trembling; "rub it all
+out;" and as she spoke her eyes brimmed again, and a great
+tear dropped on the slate.  "That's it," she said; "that's
+the way to rub it out, by me crying on it."  Then she
+passed her fingers over the tear-blurred writing and washed
+the slate clean.  "All gone, all gone," she said.
+
+"All gone," echoed the dentist.  There was a silence.  Then
+McTeague heaved himself up to his full six feet two, his
+face purpling, his enormous mallet-like fists raised over
+his head. His massive jaw protruded more than ever, while
+his teeth clicked and grated together; then he growled:
+
+"If ever I meet Marcus Schouler--" he broke off abruptly,
+the white of his eyes growing suddenly pink.
+
+"Oh, if ever you DO," exclaimed Trina, catching her
+breath.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+
+"Well, what do you think?" said Trina.
+
+She and McTeague stood in a tiny room at the back of the
+flat and on its very top floor.  The room was whitewashed. 
+It contained a bed, three cane-seated chairs, and a wooden
+washstand with its washbowl and pitcher.  From its single
+uncurtained window one looked down into the flat's dirty
+back yard and upon the roofs of the hovels that bordered the
+alley in the rear.  There was a rag carpet on the floor.  In
+place of a closet some dozen wooden pegs were affixed to the
+wall over the washstand.  There was a smell of cheap soap
+and of ancient hair-oil in the air.
+
+"That's a single bed," said Trina, "but the landlady says
+she'll put in a double one for us.  You see----"
+
+"I ain't going to live here," growled McTeague.
+
+"Well, you've got to live somewhere," said Trina,
+impatiently. "We've looked Polk Street over, and this
+is the only thing we can afford."
+
+"Afford, afford," muttered the dentist.  "You with your five
+thousand dollars, and the two or three hundred you got saved 
+up, talking about 'afford.'  You make me sick."
+
+"Now, Mac," exclaimed Trina, deliberately, sitting down in
+one of the cane-seated chairs; "now, Mac, let's have this
+thing----"
+
+"Well, I don't figure on living in one room," growled the
+dentist, sullenly.  "Let's live decently until we can get a
+fresh start.  We've got the money."
+
+"Who's got the money?"
+
+"WE'VE got it."
+
+"We!"
+
+"Well, it's all in the family.  What's yours is mine, and
+what's mine is yours, ain't it?"
+
+"No, it's not; no, it's not," cried Trina, vehemently. 
+"It's all mine, mine.  There's not a penny of it belongs to
+anybody else.  I don't like to have to talk this way to you,
+but you just make me.  We're not going to touch a penny of
+my five thousand nor a penny of that little money I managed
+to save--that seventy-five."
+
+"That TWO hundred, you mean."
+
+"That SEVENTY-FIVE.  We're just going to live on the
+interest of that and on what I earn from Uncle Oelbermann--
+on just that thirty-one or two dollars."
+
+"Huh!  Think I'm going to do that, an' live in such a room
+as this?"
+
+Trina folded her arms and looked him squarely in the face.
+
+"Well, what ARE you going to do, then?"
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"I say, what ARE you going to do?  You can go on and
+find something to do and earn some more money, and THEN
+we'll talk."
+
+"Well, I ain't going to live here."
+
+"Oh, very well, suit yourself.  I'M going to live here."
+
+"You'll live where I TELL you," the dentist suddenly
+cried, exasperated at the mincing tone she affected.
+
+"Then YOU'LL pay the rent," exclaimed Trina, quite
+as angry as he.
+
+"Are you my boss, I'd like to know?  Who's the boss, you or
+I?"
+
+"Who's got the MONEY, I'd like to know?" cried Trina,
+flushing to her pale lips.   "Answer me that, McTeague,
+who's got the money?"
+
+"You make me sick, you and your money.   Why, you're a
+miser. I never saw anything like it.   When I was
+practising, I never thought of my fees as my own; we lumped
+everything in together."
+
+"Exactly; and I'M doing the working now.   I'm working
+for Uncle Oelbermann, and you're not lumping in ANYTHING
+now. I'm doing it all.   Do you know what I'm doing,
+McTeague? I'm supporting you."
+
+"Ah, shut up; you make me sick."
+
+"You got no RIGHT to talk to me that way.   I won't let
+you.   I--I won't have it."  She caught her breath.  Tears
+were in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, live where you like, then," said McTeague, sullenly.
+
+"Well, shall we take this room then?"
+
+"All right, we'll take it.   But why can't you take a little
+of your money an'--an'--sort of fix it up?"
+
+"Not a penny, not a single penny."
+
+"Oh, I don't care WHAT you do."  And for the rest of the
+day the dentist and his wife did not speak.
+
+This was not the only quarrel they had during these days
+when they were occupied in moving from their suite and in
+looking for new quarters.   Every hour the question of money
+came up. Trina had become more niggardly than ever since the
+loss of McTeague's practice.   It was not mere economy with
+her now. It was a panic terror lest a fraction of a cent of
+her little savings should be touched; a passionate eagerness
+to continue to save in spite of all that had happened.  
+Trina could have easily afforded better quarters than the
+single whitewashed room at the top of the flat, but she made
+McTeague believe that it was impossible.
+
+"I can still save a little," she said to herself, after the
+room had been engaged; "perhaps almost as much as ever.
+I'll have three hundred dollars pretty soon, and Mac thinks
+it's only two hundred.   It's almost two hundred and fifty;
+and I'll get a good deal out of the sale."
+
+But this sale was a long agony.   It lasted a week. 
+Everything went--everything but the few big pieces that went
+with the suite, and that belonged to the photographer.  The
+melodeon, the chairs, the black walnut table before which
+they were married, the extension table in the sitting-room,
+the kitchen table with its oilcloth cover, the framed
+lithographs from the English illustrated papers, the very
+carpets on the floors.  But Trina's heart nearly broke when
+the kitchen utensils and furnishings began to go.  Every
+pot, every stewpan, every knife and fork, was an old friend. 
+How she had worked over them!  How clean she had kept them!  
+What a pleasure it had been to invade that little brick-
+paved kitchen every morning, and to wash up and put to
+rights after breakfast, turning on the hot water at the
+sink, raking down the ashes in the cook-stove, going and
+coming over the warm bricks, her head in the air, singing at
+her work, proud in the sense of her proprietorship and her
+independence!  How happy had she been the day after her
+marriage when she had first entered that kitchen and knew
+that it was all her own!  And how well she remembered her
+raids upon the bargain counters in the house-furnishing
+departments of the great down-town stores!  And now it was
+all to go.  Some one else would have it all, while she was
+relegated to cheap restaurants and meals cooked by hired
+servants.  Night after night she sobbed herself to sleep at
+the thought of her past happiness and her present
+wretchedness. However, she was not alone in her unhappiness.
+
+"Anyhow, I'm going to keep the steel engraving an' the stone
+pug dog," declared the dentist, his fist clenching.  When it
+had come to the sale of his office effects McTeague had
+rebelled with the instinctive obstinacy of a boy, shutting
+his eyes and ears.  Only little by little did Trina induce
+him to part with his office furniture.  He fought over every
+article, over the little iron stove, the bed-lounge, the
+marble-topped centre table, the whatnot in the corner,
+the bound volumes of "Allen's Practical Dentist," the rifle
+manufacturer's calendar, and the prim, military chairs.  A
+veritable scene took place between him and his wife before
+he could bring himself to part with the steel engraving of
+"Lorenzo de' Medici and His Court" and the stone pug dog
+with its goggle eyes.
+
+"Why," he would cry, "I've had 'em ever since--ever since I
+BEGAN; long before I knew you, Trina.  That steel
+engraving I bought in Sacramento one day when it was
+raining.  I saw it in the window of a second-hand store, and
+a fellow GAVE me that stone pug dog.  He was a druggist.
+It was in Sacramento too. We traded.  I gave him a shaving-
+mug and a razor, and he gave me the pug dog."
+
+There were, however, two of his belongings that even Trina
+could not induce him to part with.
+
+"And your concertina, Mac," she prompted, as they were
+making out the list for the second-hand dealer.  "The
+concertina, and--oh, yes, the canary and the bird cage."
+
+"No."
+
+"Mac, you MUST be reasonable.  The concertina would
+bring quite a sum, and the bird cage is as good as new. 
+I'll sell the canary to the bird-store man on Kearney
+Street."
+
+"No."
+
+"If you're going to make objections to every single thing, 
+we might as well quit.  Come, now, Mac, the concertina and
+the bird cage.  We'll put them in Lot D."
+
+"No."
+
+"You'll have to come to it sooner or later.  I'M giving
+up everything.  I'm going to put them down, see."
+
+"No."
+
+And she could get no further than that.  The dentist did not
+lose his temper, as in the case of the steel engraving or
+the stone pug dog; he simply opposed her entreaties and
+persuasions with a passive, inert obstinacy that nothing
+could move.  In the end Trina was obliged to submit. 
+McTeague kept his concertina and his canary, even going so
+far as to put them both away in the bedroom, attaching
+to them tags on which he had scrawled in immense round
+letters, "Not for Sale."
+
+One evening during that same week the dentist and his wife
+were in the dismantled sitting-room.   The room presented
+the appearance of a wreck.  The Nottingham lace curtains
+were down. The extension table was heaped high with dishes,
+with tea and coffee pots, and with baskets of spoons and
+knives and forks. The melodeon was hauled out into the
+middle of the floor, and covered with a sheet marked "Lot
+A," the pictures were in a pile in a corner, the chenille
+portieres were folded on top of the black walnut table.  The
+room was desolate, lamentable.  Trina was going over the
+inventory; McTeague, in his shirt sleeves, was smoking his
+pipe, looking stupidly out of the window.  All at once there
+was a brisk rapping at the door.
+
+"Come in," called Trina, apprehensively.   Now-a-days at
+every unexpected visit she anticipated a fresh calamity. 
+The door opened to let in a young man wearing a checked
+suit, a gay cravat, and a marvellously figured waistcoat. 
+Trina and McTeague recognized him at once.   It was the
+Other Dentist, the debonair fellow whose clients were the
+barbers and the young women of the candy stores and soda-
+water fountains, the poser, the wearer of waistcoats, who
+bet money on greyhound races.
+
+"How'do?" said this one, bowing gracefully to the McTeagues
+as they stared at him distrustfully.
+
+"How'do?  They tell me, Doctor, that you are going out of
+the profession."
+
+McTeague muttered indistinctly behind his mustache and
+glowered at him.
+
+"Well, say," continued the other, cheerily, "I'd like to
+talk business with you.  That sign of yours, that big golden
+tooth that you got outside of your window, I don't suppose
+you'll have any further use for it.  Maybe I'd buy it if we
+could agree on terms."
+
+Trina shot a glance at her husband.  McTeague began to
+glower again.
+
+"What do you say?" said the Other Dentist.
+
+"I guess not," growled McTeague
+
+"What do you say to ten dollars?"
+
+"Ten dollars!" cried Trina, her chin in the air.
+
+"Well, what figure DO you put on it?"
+
+Trina was about to answer when she was interrupted by
+McTeague.
+
+"You go out of here."
+
+"Hey?  What?"
+
+"You go out of here."
+
+The other retreated toward the door.
+
+"You can't make small of me.  Go out of here."
+
+McTeague came forward a step, his great red fist clenching. 
+The young man fled.  But half way down the stairs he paused
+long enough to call back:
+
+"You don't want to trade anything for a diploma, do you?"
+
+McTeague and his wife exchanged looks.
+
+"How did he know?" exclaimed Trina, sharply.  They had
+invented and spread the fiction that McTeague was merely
+retiring from business, without assigning any reason.  But
+evidently every one knew the real cause.  The humiliation
+was complete now.  Old Miss Baker confirmed their suspicions
+on this point the next day. The little retired dressmaker
+came down and wept with Trina over her misfortune, and did
+what she could to encourage her. But she too knew that
+McTeague had been forbidden by the authorities from
+practising.  Marcus had evidently left them no loophole of
+escape.
+
+"It's just like cutting off your husband's hands, my dear,"
+said Miss Baker.  "And you two were so happy.  When I first
+saw you together I said, 'What a pair!'"
+
+Old Grannis also called during this period of the breaking
+up of the McTeague household.
+
+"Dreadful, dreadful," murmured the old Englishman, his hand
+going tremulously to his chin.  "It seems unjust; it does. 
+But Mr. Schouler could not have set them on to do it.  I
+can't quite believe it of him."
+
+"Of Marcus!" cried Trina.   "Hoh!  Why, he threw his knife at
+Mac one time, and another time he bit him, actually bit him
+with his teeth, while they were wrestling just for fun.
+Marcus would do anything to injure Mac."
+
+"Dear, dear," returned Old Grannis, genuinely pained.  "I
+had always believed Schouler to be such a good fellow."
+
+"That's because you're so good yourself, Mr. Grannis,"
+responded Trina.
+
+"I tell you what, Doc," declared Heise the harness-maker,
+shaking his finger impressively at the dentist, "you must
+fight it; you must appeal to the courts; you've been
+practising too long to be debarred now.  The statute of
+limitations, you know."
+
+"No, no," Trina had exclaimed, when the dentist had repeated
+this advice to her.  "No, no, don't go near the law courts. 
+I know them.  The lawyers take all your money, and you
+lose your case.  We're bad off as it is, without lawing
+about it."
+
+Then at last came the sale.  McTeague and Trina, whom Miss
+Baker had invited to her room for that day, sat there side
+by side, holding each other's hands, listening nervously to
+the turmoil that rose to them from the direction of their
+suite.  From nine o'clock till dark the crowds came and
+went.  All Polk Street seemed to have invaded the suite,
+lured on by the red flag that waved from the front windows. 
+It was a fete, a veritable holiday, for the whole
+neighborhood.  People with no thought of buying presented
+themselves.  Young women--the candy-store girls and
+florist's apprentices--came to see the fun, walking arm in
+arm from room to room, making jokes about the pretty
+lithographs and mimicking the picture of the two little
+girls saying their prayers.
+
+"Look here," they would cry, "look here what she used for
+curtains--NOTTINGHAM lace, actually!  Whoever thinks of
+buying Nottingham lace now-a-days?  Say, don't that JAR
+you?"
+
+"And a melodeon," another one would exclaim, lifting the
+sheet. "A melodeon, when you can rent a piano for a dollar a
+week; and say, I really believe they used to eat in the
+kitchen."
+
+"Dollarn-half, dollarn-half, dollarn-half, give me two,"
+intoned the auctioneer from the second-hand store.  By noon 
+the crowd became a jam.  Wagons backed up to the curb
+outside and departed heavily laden.  In all directions
+people could be seen going away from the house,
+carrying small articles of furniture--a clock, a water
+pitcher, a towel rack.  Every now and then old Miss Baker,
+who had gone below to see how things were progressing,
+returned with reports of the foray.
+
+"Mrs. Heise bought the chenille portieres.  Mister Ryer made
+a bid for your bed, but a man in a gray coat bid over him. 
+It was knocked down for three dollars and a half.  The
+German shoe-maker on the next block bought the stone pug
+dog.  I saw our postman going away with a lot of the
+pictures.  Zerkow has come, on my word! the rags-bottles-
+sacks man; he's buying lots; he bought all Doctor McTeague's
+gold tape and some of the instruments. Maria's there too. 
+That dentist on the corner took the dental engine, and
+wanted to get the sign, the big gold tooth," and so on and
+so on.  Cruelest of all, however, at least to Trina, was
+when Miss Baker herself began to buy, unable to resist a
+bargain.  The last time she came up she carried a bundle of
+the gay tidies that used to hang over the chair backs.
+
+"He offered them, three for a nickel," she explained to
+Trina, "and I thought I'd spend just a quarter.  You don't
+mind, now, do you, Mrs. McTeague?"
+
+"Why, no, of course not, Miss Baker," answered Trina,
+bravely.
+
+"They'll look very pretty on some of my chairs," went on the
+little old dressmaker, innocently.  "See."  She spread one
+of them on a chair back for inspection.  Trina's chin
+quivered.
+
+"Oh, VERY pretty," she answered.
+
+At length that dreadful day was over.  The crowd dispersed.
+Even the auctioneer went at last, and as he closed the door
+with a bang, the reverberation that went through the suite
+gave evidence of its emptiness.
+
+"Come," said Trina to the dentist, "let's go down and look--
+take a last look."
+
+They went out of Miss Baker's room and descended to the
+floor below.  On the stairs, however, they were met by Old
+Grannis. In his hands he carried a little package. Was it
+possible that he too had taken advantage of their
+misfortunes to join in the raid upon the suite?
+
+"I went in," he began, timidly, "for--for a few moments.
+This"--he indicated the little package he carried--"this was
+put up.  It was of no value but to you.  I--I ventured to
+bid it in.  I thought perhaps"--his hand went to his chin,
+"that you wouldn't mind; that--in fact, I bought it for you
+--as a present.   Will you take it?"  He handed the package
+to Trina and hurried on.  Trina tore off the wrappings.
+
+It was the framed photograph of McTeague and his wife in
+their wedding finery, the one that had been taken
+immediately after the marriage.  It represented Trina
+sitting very erect in a rep armchair, holding her wedding
+bouquet straight before her, McTeague standing at her side,
+his left foot forward, one hand upon her shoulder, and the
+other thrust into the breast of his "Prince Albert" coat, in
+the attitude of a statue of a Secretary of State.
+
+"Oh, it WAS good of him, it WAS good of him," cried
+Trina, her eyes filling again.  "I had forgotten to put it
+away.  Of course it was not for sale."
+
+They went on down the stairs, and arriving at the door of
+the sitting-room, opened it and looked in.  It was late in
+the afternoon, and there was just light enough for the
+dentist and his wife to see the results of that day of sale. 
+Nothing was left, not even the carpet.  It was a pillage, a
+devastation, the barrenness of a field after the passage of
+a swarm of locusts. The room had been picked and stripped
+till only the bare walls and floor remained.  Here where
+they had been married, where the wedding supper had taken
+place, where Trina had bade farewell to her father and
+mother, here where she had spent those first few hard months
+of her married life, where afterward she had grown to be
+happy and contented, where she had passed the long hours of
+the afternoon at her work of whittling, and where she and
+her husband had spent so many evenings looking out of the
+window before the lamp was lit--here in what had been her
+home, nothing was left but echoes and the emptiness of
+complete desolation. Only one thing remained.  On the wall
+between the windows, in its oval glass frame, preserved by
+some unknown and fearful process, a melancholy relic of a
+vanished happiness, unsold, neglected, and forgotten, a
+thing that nobody wanted, hung Trina's wedding bouquet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+
+Then the grind began.  It would have been easier for the
+McTeagues to have faced their misfortunes had they befallen
+them immediately after their marriage, when their love for
+each other was fresh and fine, and when they could have
+found a certain happiness in helping each other and sharing
+each other's privations.  Trina, no doubt, loved her husband
+more than ever, in the sense that she felt she belonged to
+him.  But McTeague's affection for his wife was dwindling a
+little every day--HAD been dwindling for a long time, in
+fact.  He had become used to her by now.  She was part of
+the order of the things with which he found himself
+surrounded.  He saw nothing extraordinary about her; it was
+no longer a pleasure for him to kiss her and take her in his
+arms; she was merely his wife.  He did not dislike her; he
+did not love her.  She was his wife, that was all.  But he
+sadly missed and regretted all those little animal comforts
+which in the old prosperous life Trina had managed to find
+for him.  He missed the cabbage soups and steaming chocolate
+that Trina had taught him to like; he missed his good
+tobacco that Trina had educated him to prefer; he missed the
+Sunday afternoon walks that she had caused him to substitute
+in place of his nap in the operating chair; and he
+missed the bottled beer that she had induced him to
+drink in place of the steam beer from Frenna's.  In the end
+he grew morose and sulky, and sometimes neglected to answer
+his wife when she spoke to him.  Besides this, Trina's
+avarice was a perpetual annoyance to him. Oftentimes when a
+considerable alleviation of this unhappiness could have been
+obtained at the expense of a nickel or a dime, Trina refused
+the money with a pettishness that was exasperating.
+
+"No, no," she would exclaim.  "To ride to the park Sunday
+afternoon, that means ten cents, and I can't afford it."
+
+"Let's walk there, then."
+
+"I've got to work."
+
+"But you've worked morning and afternoon every day this
+week."
+
+"I don't care, I've got to work."
+
+There had been a time when Trina had hated the idea of
+McTeague drinking steam beer as common and vulgar.
+
+"Say, let's have a bottle of beer to-night.  We haven't had
+a drop of beer in three weeks."
+
+"We can't afford it.  It's fifteen cents a bottle."
+
+"But I haven't had a swallow of beer in three weeks."
+
+"Drink STEAM beer, then.  You've got a nickel.  I gave
+you a quarter day before yesterday."
+
+"But I don't like steam beer now."
+
+It was so with everything.  Unfortunately, Trina had
+cultivated tastes in McTeague which now could not be
+gratified.  He had come to be very proud of his silk hat and
+"Prince Albert" coat, and liked to wear them on Sundays. 
+Trina had made him sell both.  He preferred "Yale mixture"
+in his pipe; Trina had made him come down to "Mastiff," a
+five-cent tobacco with which he was once contented, but now
+abhorred.  He liked to wear clean cuffs; Trina allowed him a
+fresh pair on Sundays only.  At first these deprivations
+angered McTeague. Then, all of a sudden, he slipped back
+into the old habits (that had been his before he knew Trina)
+with an ease that was surprising.  Sundays he dined at the
+car conductors' coffee-joint once more, and spent the
+afternoon lying full length upon the bed, crop-full,
+stupid, warm, smoking his huge pipe, drinking his steam
+beer, and playing his six mournful tunes upon his
+concertina, dozing off to sleep towards four o'clock.
+
+The sale of their furniture had, after paying the rent and
+outstanding bills, netted about a hundred and thirty
+dollars. Trina believed that the auctioneer from the second-
+hand store had swindled and cheated them and had made a
+great outcry to no effect.  But she had arranged the affair
+with the auctioneer herself, and offset her disappointment
+in the matter of the sale by deceiving her husband as to the
+real amount of the returns. It was easy to lie to McTeague,
+who took everything for granted; and since the occasion of
+her trickery with the money that was to have been sent to
+her mother, Trina had found falsehood easier than ever.
+
+"Seventy dollars is all the auctioneer gave me," she told
+her husband; "and after paying the balance due on the rent,
+and the grocer's bill, there's only fifty left."
+
+"Only fifty?" murmured McTeague, wagging his head, "only
+fifty? Think of that."
+
+"Only fifty," declared Trina.  Afterwards she said to
+herself with a certain admiration for her cleverness:
+
+"Couldn't save sixty dollars much easier than that," and she
+had added the hundred and thirty to the little hoard in the
+chamois-skin bag and brass match-box in the bottom of her
+trunk.
+
+In these first months of their misfortunes the routine of
+the McTeagues was as follows: They rose at seven and
+breakfasted in their room, Trina cooking the very meagre
+meal on an oil stove. Immediately after breakfast Trina sat
+down to her work of whittling the Noah's ark animals, and
+McTeague took himself off to walk down town.  He had by the
+greatest good luck secured a position with a manufacturer of
+surgical instruments, where his manual dexterity in the
+making of excavators, pluggers, and other dental
+contrivances stood him in fairly good stead.  He lunched at
+a sailor's boarding-house near the water front, and in the
+afternoon worked till six.  He was home at six-thirty, and
+he and Trina had supper together in the "ladies' dining
+parlor," an adjunct of the car conductors' coffee-
+joint.  Trina, meanwhile, had worked at her whittling all
+day long, with but half an hour's interval for lunch, which
+she herself prepared upon the oil stove.  In the evening
+they were both so tired that they were in no mood for
+conversation, and went to bed early, worn out, harried,
+nervous, and cross.
+
+Trina was not quite so scrupulously tidy now as in the old
+days.  At one time while whittling the Noah's ark animals
+she had worn gloves.  She never wore them now.  She still
+took pride in neatly combing and coiling her wonderful black
+hair, but as the days passed she found it more and more
+comfortable to work in her blue flannel wrapper.  Whittlings
+and chips accumulated under the window where she did her
+work, and she was at no great pains to clear the air of the
+room vitiated by the fumes of the oil stove and heavy with
+the smell of cooking.  It was not gay, that life.  The room
+itself was not gay.  The huge double bed sprawled over
+nearly a fourth of the available space; the angles of
+Trina's trunk and the washstand projected into the room from
+the walls, and barked shins and scraped elbows.  Streaks and
+spots of the "non-poisonous" paint that Trina used were upon
+the walls and wood-work.  However, in one corner of the
+room, next the window, monstrous, distorted, brilliant,
+shining with a light of its own, stood the dentist's sign,
+the enormous golden tooth, the tooth of a Brobdingnag.
+
+One afternoon in September, about four months after the
+McTeagues had left their suite, Trina was at her work by the
+window.  She had whittled some half-dozen sets of animals,
+and was now busy painting them and making the arks.  Little
+pots of "non-poisonous" paint stood at her elbow on the
+table, together with a box of labels that read, "Made in
+France."  Her huge clasp-knife was stuck into the under side
+of the table.  She was now occupied solely with the brushes
+and the glue pot. She turned the little figures in her
+fingers with a wonderful lightness and deftness, painting
+the chickens Naples yellow, the elephants blue gray, the
+horses Vandyke brown, adding a dot of Chinese white for the
+eyes and sticking in the ears and tail with a drop of glue. 
+The animals once done, she put together and painted the
+arks, some dozen of them, all windows and no doors, each one
+opening only by a lid which was half the roof.  She had all
+the work she could handle these days, for, from this time
+till a week before Christmas, Uncle Oelbermann could take as
+many "Noah's ark sets" as she could make.
+
+Suddenly Trina paused in her work, looking expectantly
+toward the door. McTeague came in.
+
+"Why, Mac," exclaimed Trina.  "It's only three o'clock. What
+are you home so early for?  Have they discharged you?"
+
+"They've fired me," said McTeague, sitting down on the bed.
+
+"Fired you!  What for?"
+
+"I don' know.  Said the times were getting hard an' they had
+to let me go."
+
+Trina let her paint-stained hands fall into her lap.
+
+"OH!" she cried.  "If we don't have the HARDEST luck
+of any two people I ever heard of.  What can you do now?  Is
+there another place like that where they make surgical
+instruments?"
+
+"Huh?  No, I don' know.  There's three more."
+
+"Well, you must try them right away.  Go down there right
+now."
+
+"Huh?  Right now?  No, I'm tired.  I'll go down in the
+morning."
+
+"Mac," cried Trina, in alarm, "what are you thinking of? 
+You talk as though we were millionaires.  You must go down
+this minute.  You're losing money every second you sit
+there."  She goaded the huge fellow to his feet again,
+thrust his hat into his hands, and pushed him out of the
+door, he obeying the while, docile and obedient as a big
+cart horse.  He was on the stairs when she came running
+after him.
+
+"Mac, they paid you off, didn't they, when they discharged
+you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you must have some money.  Give it to me."
+
+The dentist heaved a shoulder uneasily.
+
+"No, I don' want to."
+
+"I've got to have that money.  There's no more oil for
+the stove, and I must buy some more meal tickets to-night."
+
+ "Always after me about money," muttered the dentist; but he
+emptied his pockets for her, nevertheless.
+
+"I--you've taken it all," he grumbled.  "Better leave me
+something for car fare.  It's going to rain."
+
+"Pshaw!  You can walk just as well as not.  A big fellow
+like you 'fraid of a little walk; and it ain't going to
+rain."
+
+Trina had lied again both as to the want of oil for the
+stove and the commutation ticket for the restaurant.  But
+she knew by instinct that McTeague had money about him, and
+she did not intend to let it go out of the house.  She
+listened intently until she was sure McTeague was gone. 
+Then she hurriedly opened her trunk and hid the money in the
+chamois bag at the bottom.
+
+The dentist presented himself at every one of the makers of
+surgical instruments that afternoon and was promptly turned
+away in each case.  Then it came on to rain, a fine, cold
+drizzle, that chilled him and wet him to the bone.  He had
+no umbrella, and Trina had not left him even five cents for
+car fare.  He started to walk home through the rain.  It was
+a long way to Polk Street, as the last manufactory he had
+visited was beyond even Folsom Street, and not far from the
+city front.
+
+By the time McTeague reached Polk Street his teeth were
+chattering with the cold.  He was wet from head to foot.  As
+he was passing Heise's harness shop a sudden deluge of rain
+overtook him and he was obliged to dodge into the vestibule
+for shelter.  He, who loved to be warm, to sleep and to be
+well fed, was icy cold, was exhausted and footsore from
+tramping the city.  He could look forward to nothing better
+than a badly-cooked supper at the coffee-joint--hot meat on
+a cold plate, half done suet pudding, muddy coffee, and bad
+bread, and he was cold, miserably cold, and wet to the bone. 
+All at once a sudden rage against Trina took possession of
+him.  It was her fault.  She knew it was going to rain, and
+she had not let him have a nickel for car fare--she who had
+five thousand dollars.  She let him walk the streets in the
+cold and in the rain.  "Miser," he growled behind his
+mustache.  "Miser, nasty little old miser. You're worse
+than old Zerkow, always nagging about money, money, and you
+got five thousand dollars.  You got more, an' you live in
+that stinking hole of a room, and you won't drink any decent
+beer.  I ain't going to stand it much longer.  She knew it
+was going to rain.  She KNEW it.  Didn't I TELL her?
+And she drives me out of my own home in the rain, for me to
+get money for her; more money, and she takes it.  She took
+that money from me that I earned.  'Twasn't hers; it was
+mine, I earned it--and not a nickel for car fare.  She don't
+care if I get wet and get a cold and DIE.  No, she
+don't, as long as she's warm and's got her money."  He
+became more and more indignant at the picture he made of
+himself.  "I ain't going to stand it much longer," he
+repeated.
+
+"Why, hello, Doc.  Is that you?" exclaimed Heise, opening
+the door of the harness shop behind him.  "Come in out of
+the wet. Why, you're soaked through," he added as he and
+McTeague came back into the shop, that reeked of oiled
+leather.  "Didn't you have any umbrella?  Ought to have
+taken a car."
+
+"I guess so--I guess so," murmured the dentist, confused. 
+His teeth were chattering.
+
+"YOU'RE going to catch your death-a-cold," exclaimed
+Heise. "Tell you what," he said, reaching for his hat, "come
+in next door to Frenna's and have something to warm you up. 
+I'll get the old lady to mind the shop."  He called Mrs.
+Heise down from the floor above and took McTeague into Joe
+Frenna's saloon, which was two doors above his harness shop.
+
+"Whiskey and gum twice, Joe," said he to the barkeeper as he
+and the dentist approached the bar.
+
+"Huh?  What?" said McTeague.  "Whiskey?  No, I can't drink
+whiskey.  It kind of disagrees with me."
+
+"Oh, the hell!" returned Heise, easily.  "Take it as
+medicine. You'll get your death-a-cold if you stand round
+soaked like that.  Two whiskey and gum, Joe."
+
+McTeague emptied the pony glass at a single enormous gulp.
+
+"That's the way," said Heise, approvingly.  "Do you good."  
+He drank his off slowly.
+
+"I'd--I'd ask you to have a drink with me, Heise," said
+the dentist, who had an indistinct idea of the amenities of
+the barroom, "only," he added shamefacedly, "only--you see,
+I don't believe I got any change."  His anger against Trina,
+heated by the whiskey he had drank, flamed up afresh.  What
+a humiliating position for Trina to place him in, not to
+leave him the price of a drink with a friend, she who had
+five thousand dollars!
+
+"Sha!  That's all right, Doc," returned Heise, nibbling on a
+grain of coffee.  "Want another?  Hey?  This my treat.  Two
+more of the same, Joe."
+
+McTeague hesitated.  It was lamentably true that whiskey did
+not agree with him; he knew it well enough.  However, by
+this time he felt very comfortably warm at the pit of his
+stomach.  The blood was beginning to circulate in his
+chilled finger-tips and in his soggy, wet feet.  He had had
+a hard day of it; in fact, the last week, the last month,
+the last three or four months, had been hard.  He deserved a
+little consolation.  Nor could Trina object to this.  It
+wasn't costing a cent.  He drank again with Heise.
+
+"Get up here to the stove and warm yourself," urged Heise,
+drawing up a couple of chairs and cocking his feet upon the
+guard.  The two fell to talking while McTeague's draggled
+coat and trousers smoked.
+
+"What a dirty turn that was that Marcus Schouler did you!"
+said Heise, wagging his head.  "You ought to have fought
+that, Doc, sure.  You'd been practising too long."  They
+discussed this question some ten or fifteen minutes and then
+Heise rose.
+
+"Well, this ain't earning any money.  I got to get back to
+the shop."  McTeague got up as well, and the pair started
+for the door.  Just as they were going out Ryer met them.
+
+"Hello, hello," he cried.  "Lord, what a wet day!  You two
+are going the wrong way.  You're going to have a drink with
+me. Three whiskey punches, Joe."
+
+"No, no," answered McTeague, shaking his head.  "I'm going
+back home.  I've had two glasses of whiskey already."
+
+"Sha!" cried Heise, catching his arm.  "A strapping big chap
+like you ain't afraid of a little whiskey."
+
+"Well, I--I--I got to go right afterwards," protested
+McTeague.
+
+About half an hour after the dentist had left to go down
+town, Maria Macapa had come in to see Trina.  Occasionally
+Maria dropped in on Trina in this fashion and spent an hour
+or so chatting with her while she worked.  At first Trina
+had been inclined to resent these intrusions of the Mexican
+woman, but of late she had begun to tolerate them.  Her day
+was long and cheerless at the best, and there was no one to
+talk to.  Trina even fancied that old Miss Baker had come to
+be less cordial since their misfortune.  Maria retailed to
+her all the gossip of the flat and the neighborhood, and,
+which was much more interesting, told her of her troubles
+with Zerkow.
+
+Trina said to herself that Maria was common and vulgar, but
+one had to have some diversion, and Trina could talk and
+listen without interrupting her work.  On this particular
+occasion Maria was much excited over Zerkow's demeanor of
+late.
+
+"He's gettun worse an' worse," she informed Trina as she sat
+on the edge of the bed, her chin in her hand.  "He says he
+knows I got the dishes and am hidun them from him.  The
+other day I thought he'd gone off with his wagon, and I was
+doin' a bit of ir'ning, an' by an' by all of a sudden I saw
+him peeping at me through the crack of the door.  I never
+let on that I saw him, and, honest, he stayed there over two
+hours, watchun everything I did.  I could just feel his eyes
+on the back of my neck all the time.  Last Sunday he took
+down part of the wall, 'cause he said he'd seen me making
+figures on it.  Well, I was, but it was just the wash list. 
+All the time he says he'll kill me if I don't tell."
+
+"Why, what do you stay with him for?" exclaimed Trina.  "I'd
+be deathly 'fraid of a man like that; and he did take a
+knife to you once."
+
+"Hoh!  HE won't kill me, never fear.  If he'd kill me
+he'd never know where the dishes were; that's what HE
+thinks."
+
+"But I can't understand, Maria; you told him about those
+gold dishes yourself."
+
+"Never, never!  I never saw such a lot of crazy folks as
+you are."
+
+"But you say he hits you sometimes."
+
+"Ah!" said Maria, tossing her head scornfully, "I ain't
+afraid of him.  He takes his horsewhip to me now and then,
+but I can always manage.  I say, 'If you touch me with that,
+then I'll NEVER tell you.'  Just pretending, you know,
+and he drops it as though it was red hot.  Say, Mrs.
+McTeague, have you got any tea?  Let's make a cup of tea
+over the stove."
+
+"No, no," cried Trina, with niggardly apprehension; "no, I
+haven't got a bit of tea."  Trina's stinginess had increased
+to such an extent that it had gone beyond the mere hoarding
+of money.  She grudged even the food that she and McTeague
+ate, and even brought away half loaves of bread, lumps of
+sugar, and fruit from the car conductors' coffee-joint.  She
+hid these pilferings away on the shelf by the window, and
+often managed to make a very creditable lunch from them,
+enjoying the meal with the greater relish because it cost
+her nothing.
+
+"No, Maria, I haven't got a bit of tea," she said, shaking
+her head decisively.  "Hark, ain't that Mac?" she added, her
+chin in the air.  "That's his step, sure."
+
+"Well, I'm going to skip," said Maria.  She left hurriedly,
+passing the dentist in the hall just outside the door.
+"Well?" said Trina interrogatively as her husband entered. 
+McTeague did not answer.  He hung his hat on the hook behind
+the door and dropped heavily into a chair.
+
+"Well," asked Trina, anxiously, "how did you make out, Mac?"
+
+Still the dentist pretended not to hear, scowling fiercely
+at his muddy boots.
+
+"Tell me, Mac, I want to know.  Did you get a place?  Did
+you get caught in the rain?"
+
+"Did I?  Did I?" cried the dentist, sharply, an alacrity in
+his manner and voice that Trina had never observed before.
+
+"Look at me.  Look at me," he went on, speaking with an
+unwonted rapidity, his wits sharp, his ideas succeeding
+each other quickly.  "Look at me, drenched through,
+shivering cold.  I've walked the city over.  Caught in the
+rain!  Yes, I guess I did get caught in the rain, and it
+ain't your fault I didn't catch my death-a-cold; wouldn't
+even let me have a nickel for car fare."
+
+"But, Mac," protested Trina, "I didn't know it was going to
+rain."
+
+The dentist put back his head and laughed scornfully.  His
+face was very red, and his small eyes twinkled.  "Hoh! no,
+you didn't know it was going to rain.  Didn't I TELL you
+it was?" he exclaimed, suddenly angry again. "Oh, you're a
+DAISY, you are.  Think I'm going to put up with your
+foolishness ALL the time? Who's the boss, you or I?"
+
+"Why, Mac, I never saw you this way before.  You talk like a
+different man."
+
+"Well, I AM a different man," retorted the dentist,
+savagely.  "You can't make small of me ALWAYS."
+
+"Well, never mind that.  You know I'm not trying to make
+small of you.  But never mind that.  Did you get a place?"
+
+"Give me my money," exclaimed McTeague, jumping up briskly.
+There was an activity, a positive nimbleness about the huge
+blond giant that had never been his before; also his
+stupidity, the sluggishness of his brain, seemed to be
+unusually stimulated.
+
+"Give me my money, the money I gave you as I was going
+away."
+
+"I can't," exclaimed Trina.  "I paid the grocer's bill with
+it while you were gone."
+
+"Don't believe you."
+
+"Truly, truly, Mac.  Do you think I'd lie to you?  Do you
+think I'd lower myself to do that?"
+
+"Well, the next time I earn any money I'll keep it myself."
+
+"But tell me, Mac, DID you get a place?"
+
+McTeague turned his back on her.
+
+"Tell me, Mac, please, did you?"
+
+The dentist jumped up and thrust his face close to
+hers, his heavy jaw protruding, his little eyes twinkling
+meanly.
+
+"No," he shouted.  "No, no, NO.  Do you hear?  NO."
+
+Trina cowered before him.  Then suddenly she began to sob
+aloud, weeping partly at his strange brutality, partly at
+the disappointment of his failure to find employment.
+
+McTeague cast a contemptuous glance about him, a glance that
+embraced the dingy, cheerless room, the rain streaming down
+the panes of the one window, and the figure of his weeping
+wife.
+
+"Oh, ain't this all FINE?" he exclaimed.  "Ain't it
+lovely?"
+
+"It's not my fault," sobbed Trina.
+
+"It is too," vociferated McTeague.  "It is too.  We could
+live like Christians and decent people if you wanted to. 
+You got more'n five thousand dollars, and you're so damned
+stingy that you'd rather live in a rat hole--and make me
+live there too--before you'd part with a nickel of it.  I
+tell you I'm sick and tired of the whole business."
+
+An allusion to her lottery money never failed to rouse
+Trina.
+
+"And I'll tell you this much too," she cried, winking back
+the tears.  "Now that you're out of a job, we can't afford
+even to live in your rat hole, as you call it.  We've got to
+find a cheaper place than THIS even."
+
+"What!" exclaimed the dentist, purple with rage. "What, get
+into a worse hole in the wall than this?  Well, we'll
+SEE if we will.  We'll just see about that.  You're going
+to do just as I tell you after this, Trina McTeague," and
+once more he thrust his face close to hers.
+
+"I know what's the matter," cried Trina, with a half
+sob; "I know, I can smell it on your breath.  You've been
+drinking whiskey."
+
+"Yes, I've been drinking whiskey," retorted her husband. 
+"I've been drinking whiskey.  Have you got anything to say
+about it? Ah, yes, you're RIGHT, I've been drinking
+whiskey.  What have YOU got to say about my drinking
+whiskey?  Let's hear it."
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!" sobbed Trina, covering her face with her
+hands. McTeague caught her wrists in one palm and
+pulled them down. Trina's pale face was streaming with
+tears; her long, narrow blue eyes were swimming; her
+adorable little chin upraised and quivering.
+
+"Let's hear what you got to say," exclaimed McTeague.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," said Trina, between her sobs.
+
+"Then stop that noise.  Stop it, do you hear me?  Stop it."  
+He threw up his open hand threateningly.  "STOP!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+Trina looked at him fearfully, half blinded with weeping. 
+Her husband's thick mane of yellow hair was disordered and
+rumpled upon his great square-cut head; his big red ears
+were redder than ever; his face was purple; the thick
+eyebrows were knotted over the small, twinkling eyes; the
+heavy yellow mustache, that smelt of alcohol, drooped over
+the massive, protruding chin, salient, like that of the
+carnivora; the veins were swollen and throbbing on his thick
+red neck; while over her head Trina saw his upraised palm,
+callused, enormous.
+
+"Stop!" he exclaimed.  And Trina, watching fearfully, saw
+the palm suddenly contract into a fist, a fist that was hard
+as a wooden mallet, the fist of the old-time car-boy.  And
+then her ancient terror of him, the intuitive fear of the
+male, leaped to life again.  She was afraid of him. Every
+nerve of her quailed and shrank from him.  She choked back
+her sobs, catching her breath.
+
+"There," growled the dentist, releasing her, "that's more
+like.  Now," he went on, fixing her with his little eyes,
+"now listen to me.  I'm beat out.  I've walked the city
+over--ten miles, I guess--an' I'm going to bed, an' I don't
+want to be bothered.  You understand?  I want to be let
+alone."  Trina was silent.
+
+"Do you HEAR?" he snarled.
+
+"Yes, Mac."
+
+The dentist took off his coat, his collar and necktie,
+unbuttoned his vest, and slipped his heavy-soled boots from
+his big feet.  Then he stretched himself upon the bed and
+rolled over towards the wall.  In a few minutes the sound of
+his snoring filled the room.
+
+Trina craned her neck and looked at her husband over the
+footboard of the bed.  She saw his red, congested face;
+the huge mouth wide open; his unclean shirt, with its frayed
+wristbands; and his huge feet encased in thick woollen
+socks.  Then her grief and the sense of her unhappiness
+returned more poignant than ever.  She stretched her arms
+out in front of her on her work-table, and, burying her face
+in them, cried and sobbed as though her heart would break.
+
+The rain continued.  The panes of the single window ran with
+sheets of water; the eaves dripped incessantly.  It grew
+darker.  The tiny, grimy room, full of the smells of cooking
+and of "non-poisonous" paint, took on an aspect of
+desolation and cheerlessness lamentable beyond words.  The
+canary in its little gilt prison chittered feebly from time
+to time.  Sprawled at full length upon the bed, the dentist
+snored and snored, stupefied, inert, his legs wide apart,
+his hands lying palm upward at his sides.
+
+At last Trina raised her head, with a long, trembling
+breath. She rose, and going over to the washstand, poured
+some water from the pitcher into the basin, and washed her
+face and swollen eyelids, and rearranged her hair. 
+Suddenly, as she was about to return to her work, she was
+struck with an idea.
+
+"I wonder," she said to herself, "I wonder where he got the
+money to buy his whiskey."  She searched the pockets of his
+coat, which he had flung into a corner of the room, and even
+came up to him as he lay upon the bed and went through the
+pockets of his vest and trousers. She found nothing.
+
+"I wonder," she murmured, "I wonder if he's got any
+money he don't tell me about.  I'll have to look out for
+that."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+
+A week passed, then a fortnight, then a month.  It was a
+month of the greatest anxiety and unquietude for Trina. 
+McTeague was out of a job, could find nothing to do; and
+Trina, who saw the impossibility of saving as much money as
+usual out of her earnings under the present conditions, was
+on the lookout for cheaper quarters.  In spite of his
+outcries and sulky resistance Trina had induced her husband
+to consent to such a move, bewildering him with a torrent of
+phrases and marvellous columns of figures by which she
+proved conclusively that they were in a condition but one
+remove from downright destitution.
+
+The dentist continued idle.  Since his ill success with the
+manufacturers of surgical instruments he had made but two
+attempts to secure a job.  Trina had gone to see Uncle
+Oelbermann and had obtained for McTeague a position in the
+shipping department of the wholesale toy store.  However, it
+was a position that involved a certain amount of ciphering,
+and McTeague had been obliged to throw it up in two days.
+
+Then for a time they had entertained a wild idea that a
+place on the police force could be secured for McTeague.  He
+could pass the physical examination with flying colors, and
+Ryer, who had become the secretary of the Polk Street
+Improvement Club, promised the requisite political "pull."  
+If McTeague had shown a certain energy in the matter the
+attempt might have been successful; but he was too
+stupid, or of late had become too listless to exert himself
+greatly, and the affair resulted only in a violent quarrel
+with Ryer.
+
+McTeague had lost his ambition.  He did not care to better
+his situation.  All he wanted was a warm place to sleep and
+three good meals a day.  At the first--at the very first--he
+had chafed at his idleness and had spent the days with his
+wife in their one narrow room, walking back and forth with
+the restlessness of a caged brute, or sitting motionless for
+hours, watching Trina at her work, feeling a dull glow of
+shame at the idea that she was supporting him.  This feeling
+had worn off quickly, however.  Trina's work was only hard
+when she chose to make it so, and as a rule she supported
+their misfortunes with a silent fortitude.
+
+Then, wearied at his inaction and feeling the need of
+movement and exercise, McTeague would light his pipe and
+take a turn upon the great avenue one block above Polk
+Street.  A gang of laborers were digging the foundations for
+a large brownstone house, and McTeague found interest and
+amusement in leaning over the barrier that surrounded the
+excavations and watching the progress of the work.  He came
+to see it every afternoon; by and by he even got to know the
+foreman who superintended the job, and the two had long
+talks together.  Then McTeague would return to Polk Street
+and find Heise in the back room of the harness shop, and
+occasionally the day ended with some half dozen drinks of
+whiskey at Joe Frenna's saloon.
+
+It was curious to note the effect of the alcohol upon the
+dentist.  It did not make him drunk, it made him vicious. 
+So far from being stupefied, he became, after the fourth
+glass, active, alert, quick-witted, even talkative; a
+certain wickedness stirred in him then; he was intractable,
+mean; and when he had drunk a little more heavily than
+usual, he found a certain pleasure in annoying and
+exasperating Trina, even in abusing and hurting her.
+
+It had begun on the evening of Thanksgiving Day, when Heise
+had taken McTeague out to dinner with him.  The dentist on
+this occasion had drunk very freely.  He and Heise had
+returned to Polk Street towards ten o'clock, and Heise
+at once suggested a couple of drinks at Frenna's.
+
+"All right, all right," said McTeague.  "Drinks, that's the
+word.  I'll go home and get some money and meet you at
+Joe's."
+
+Trina was awakened by her husband pinching her arm.
+
+"Oh, Mac," she cried, jumping up in bed with a little
+scream, "how you hurt!  Oh, that hurt me dreadfully."
+
+"Give me a little money," answered the dentist, grinning,
+and pinching her again.
+
+"I haven't a cent.  There's not a--oh, MAC, will you
+stop? I won't have you pinch me that way."
+
+"Hurry up," answered her husband, calmly, nipping the flesh
+of her shoulder between his thumb and finger.  "Heise's
+waiting for me."  Trina wrenched from him with a sharp
+intake of breath, frowning with pain, and caressing her
+shoulder.
+
+"Mac, you've no idea how that hurts.  Mac, STOP!"
+
+"Give me some money, then."
+
+In the end Trina had to comply.  She gave him half a dollar
+from her dress pocket, protesting that it was the only piece
+of money she had.
+
+"One more, just for luck," said McTeague, pinching her
+again; "and another."
+
+"How can you--how CAN you hurt a woman so!" exclaimed
+Trina, beginning to cry with the pain.
+
+"Ah, now, CRY," retorted the dentist.  "That's right,
+CRY.  I never saw such a little fool."  He went out,
+slamming the door in disgust.
+
+But McTeague never became a drunkard in the generally
+received sense of the term.  He did not drink to excess more
+than two or three times in a month, and never upon any
+occasion did he become maudlin or staggering.  Perhaps his
+nerves were naturally too dull to admit of any excitation;
+perhaps he did not really care for the whiskey, and only
+drank because Heise and the other men at Frenna's did. 
+Trina could often reproach him with drinking too much; she
+never could say that he was drunk.  The alcohol had its
+effect for all that.  It roused the man, or rather the brute
+in the man, and now not only roused it, but goaded it to
+evil.  McTeague's nature changed.  It was not only the
+alcohol, it was idleness and a general throwing off of the
+good influence his wife had had over him in the days of
+their prosperity.  McTeague disliked Trina.  She was a
+perpetual irritation to him.  She annoyed him because she
+was so small, so prettily made, so invariably correct and
+precise.  Her avarice incessantly harassed him.  Her
+industry was a constant reproach to him.  She seemed to
+flaunt her work defiantly in his face. It was the red flag
+in the eyes of the bull.  One time when he had just come
+back from Frenna's and had been sitting in the chair near
+her, silently watching her at her work, he exclaimed all of
+a sudden:
+
+"Stop working.  Stop it, I tell you.  Put 'em away. Put 'em
+all away, or I'll pinch you."
+
+"But why--why?" Trina protested.
+
+The dentist cuffed her ears.  "I won't have you work."  He
+took her knife and her paint-pots away, and made her sit
+idly in the window the rest of the afternoon.
+
+It was, however, only when his wits had been stirred with
+alcohol that the dentist was brutal to his wife.  At other
+times, say three weeks of every month, she was merely an
+incumbrance to him.  They often quarrelled about Trina's
+money, her savings.  The dentist was bent upon having at
+least a part of them.  What he would do with the money once
+he had it, he did not precisely know.  He would spend it in
+royal fashion, no doubt, feasting continually, buying
+himself wonderful clothes. The miner's idea of money quickly
+gained and lavishly squandered, persisted in his mind.  As
+for Trina, the more her husband stormed, the tighter she
+drew the strings of the little chamois-skin bag that she hid
+at the bottom of her trunk underneath her bridal dress. Her
+five thousand dollars invested in Uncle Oelbermann's
+business was a glittering, splendid dream which came to her
+almost every hour of the day as a solace and a compensation
+for all her unhappiness.
+
+At times, when she knew that McTeague was far from
+home, she would lock her door, open her trunk, and pile all
+her little hoard on her table.  By now it was four hundred
+and seven dollars and fifty cents.  Trina would play with
+this money by the hour, piling it, and repiling it, or
+gathering it all into one heap, and drawing back to the
+farthest corner of the room to note the effect, her head on
+one side.  She polished the gold pieces with a mixture of
+soap and ashes until they shone, wiping them carefully on
+her apron.  Or, again, she would draw the heap lovingly
+toward her and bury her face in it, delighted at the smell
+of it and the feel of the smooth, cool metal on her cheeks. 
+She even put the smaller gold pieces in her mouth, and
+jingled them there.  She loved her money with an intensity
+that she could hardly express.  She would plunge her small
+fingers into the pile with little murmurs of affection, her
+long, narrow eyes half closed and shining, her breath coming
+in long sighs.
+
+"Ah, the dear money, the dear money," she would whisper.  "I
+love you so!  All mine, every penny of it.  No one shall
+ever, ever get you.  How I've worked for you!  How I've
+slaved and saved for you!  And I'm going to get more; I'm
+going to get more, more, more; a little every day."
+
+She was still looking for cheaper quarters.  Whenever she
+could spare a moment from her work, she would put on her hat
+and range up and down the entire neighborhood from Sutter to
+Sacramento Streets, going into all the alleys and bystreets,
+her head in the air, looking for the "Rooms-to-let" sign. 
+But she was in despair.  All the cheaper tenements were
+occupied.  She could find no room more reasonable than the
+one she and the dentist now occupied.
+
+As time went on, McTeague's idleness became habitual. He
+drank no more whiskey than at first, but his dislike for
+Trina increased with every day of their poverty, with every
+day of Trina's persistent stinginess.  At times--fortunately
+rare he was more than ever brutal to her.  He would box her
+ears or hit her a great blow with the back of a hair-brush,
+or even with his closed fist.  His old-time affection
+for his "little woman," unable to stand the test of
+privation, had lapsed by degrees, and what little of it was
+left was changed, distorted, and made monstrous by the
+alcohol.
+
+The people about the house and the clerks at the provision
+stores often remarked that Trina's fingertips were swollen
+and the nails purple as though they had been shut in a door.
+Indeed, this was the explanation she gave.  The fact of the
+matter was that McTeague, when he had been drinking, used to
+bite them, crunching and grinding them with his immense
+teeth, always ingenious enough to remember which were the
+sorest. Sometimes he extorted money from her by this means,
+but as often as not he did it for his own satisfaction.
+
+And in some strange, inexplicable way this brutality made
+Trina all the more affectionate; aroused in her a morbid,
+unwholesome love of submission, a strange, unnatural
+pleasure in yielding, in surrendering herself to the will of
+an irresistible, virile power.
+
+Trina's emotions had narrowed with the narrowing of her
+daily life.  They reduced themselves at last to but two, her
+passion for her money and her perverted love for her husband
+when he was brutal.  She was a strange woman during these
+days.
+
+Trina had come to be on very intimate terms with Maria
+Macapa, and in the end the dentist's wife and the maid of
+all work became great friends.  Maria was constantly in and
+out of Trina's room, and, whenever she could, Trina threw a
+shawl over her head and returned Maria's calls.  Trina could
+reach Zerkow's dirty house without going into the street. 
+The back yard of the flat had a gate that opened into a
+little inclosure where Zerkow kept his decrepit horse and
+ramshackle wagon, and from thence Trina could enter directly
+into Maria's kitchen.  Trina made long visits to Maria
+during the morning in her dressing-gown and curl papers, and
+the two talked at great length over a cup of tea served on
+the edge of the sink or a corner of the laundry table.  The
+talk was all of their husbands and of what to do when they
+came home in aggressive moods.
+
+"You never ought to fight um," advised Maria.  "It only
+makes um worse.  Just hump your back, and it's soonest
+over."
+
+They told each other of their husbands' brutalities, taking
+a strange sort of pride in recounting some particularly
+savage blow, each trying to make out that her own husband
+was the most cruel.  They critically compared each other's
+bruises, each one glad when she could exhibit the worst. 
+They exaggerated, they invented details, and, as if proud of
+their beatings, as if glorying in their husbands'
+mishandling, lied to each other, magnifying their own
+maltreatment.  They had long and excited arguments as to
+which were the most effective means of punishment, the
+rope's ends and cart whips such as Zerkow used, or the fists
+and backs of hair-brushes affected by McTeague. Maria
+contended that the lash of the whip hurt the most; Trina,
+that the butt did the most injury.
+
+Maria showed Trina the holes in the walls and the loosened
+boards in the flooring where Zerkow had been searching for
+the gold plate.  Of late he had been digging in the back
+yard and had ransacked the hay in his horse-shed for the
+concealed leather chest he imagined he would find.  But he
+was becoming impatient, evidently.
+
+"The way he goes on," Maria told Trina, "is somethun
+dreadful. He's gettun regularly sick with it--got a fever
+every night--don't sleep, and when he does, talks to
+himself.  Says 'More'n a hundred pieces, an' every one of
+'em gold.  More'n a hundred pieces, an' every one of 'em
+gold.' Then he'll whale me with his whip, and shout, 'You
+know where it is.  Tell me, tell me, you swine, or I'll do
+for you.'  An' then he'll get down on his knees and whimper,
+and beg me to tell um where I've hid it. He's just gone plum
+crazy.  Sometimes he has regular fits, he gets so mad, and
+rolls on the floor and scratches himself."
+
+One morning in November, about ten o'clock, Trina pasted a
+"Made in France" label on the bottom of a Noah's ark, and
+leaned back in her chair with a long sigh of relief.  She
+had just finished a large Christmas order for Uncle
+Oelbermann, and there was nothing else she could do that
+morning.  The bed had not yet been made, nor had the
+breakfast things been washed.  Trina hesitated for a moment,
+then put her chin in the air indifferently.
+
+"Bah!" she said, "let them go till this afternoon.  I don't
+care WHEN the room is put to rights, and I know Mac
+don't."  She determined that instead of making the bed or
+washing the dishes she would go and call on Miss Baker on
+the floor below.  The little dressmaker might ask her to
+stay to lunch, and that would be something saved, as the
+dentist had announced his intention that morning of taking a
+long walk out to the Presidio to be gone all day.
+
+But Trina rapped on Miss Baker's door in vain that morning. 
+She was out.  Perhaps she was gone to the florist's to buy
+some geranium seeds.  However, Old Grannis's door stood a
+little ajar, and on hearing Trina at Miss Baker's room, the
+old Englishman came out into the hall.
+
+"She's gone out," he said, uncertainly, and in a half
+whisper, "went out about half an hour ago.  I--I think she
+went to the drug store to get some wafers for the goldfish."
+
+"Don't you go to your dog hospital any more, Mister
+Grannis?" said Trina, leaning against the balustrade in the
+hall, willing to talk a moment.
+
+Old Grannis stood in the doorway of his room, in his carpet
+slippers and faded corduroy jacket that he wore when at
+home.
+
+"Why--why," he said, hesitating, tapping his chin
+thoughtfully. "You see I'm thinking of giving up the little
+hospital."
+
+"Giving it up?"
+
+"You see, the people at the book store where I buy my
+pamphlets have found out--I told them of my contrivance for
+binding books, and one of the members of the firm came up to
+look at it.  He offered me quite a sum if I would sell him
+the right of it--the--patent of it--quite a sum.  In fact--
+in fact--yes, quite a sum, quite."  He rubbed his chin
+tremulously and looked about him on the floor.
+
+"Why, isn't that fine?" said Trina, good-naturedly. "I'm
+very glad, Mister Grannis.  Is it a good price?"
+
+"Quite a sum--quite.  In fact, I never dreamed of
+having so much money."
+
+"Now, see here, Mister Grannis," said Trina, decisively, "I
+want to give you a good piece of advice.  Here are you and
+Miss Baker----"  The old Englishman started nervously--"You
+and Miss Baker, that have been in love with each other for----"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. McTeague, that subject--if you would please--Miss
+Baker is such an estimable lady."
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" said Trina.  "You're in love with each
+other, and the whole flat knows it; and you two have been
+living here side by side year in and year out, and you've
+never said a word to each other.  It's all nonsense.  Now, I
+want you should go right in and speak to her just as soon as
+she comes home, and say you've come into money and you want
+her to marry you."
+
+"Impossible--impossible!" exclaimed the old Englishman,
+alarmed and perturbed.  "It's quite out of the question.  I
+wouldn't presume."
+
+"Well, do you love her, or not?"
+
+"Really, Mrs. McTeague, I--I--you must excuse me.  It's a
+matter so personal--so--I--Oh, yes, I love her.  Oh, yes,
+indeed," he exclaimed, suddenly.
+
+"Well, then, she loves you.  She told me so."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"She did.  She said those very words."
+
+Miss Baker had said nothing of the kind--would have died
+sooner than have made such a confession; but Trina had drawn
+her own conclusions, like every other lodger of the flat,
+and thought the time was come for decided action.
+
+"Now you do just as I tell you, and when she comes home, go
+right in and see her, and have it over with.  Now, don't say
+another word.  I'm going; but you do just as I tell you."
+
+Trina turned about and went down-stairs.  She had decided,
+since Miss Baker was not at home, that she would run over
+and see Maria; possibly she could have lunch there.  At any
+rate, Maria would offer her a cup of tea.
+
+Old Grannis stood for a long time just as Trina had
+left him, his hands trembling, the blood coming and going in
+his withered cheeks.
+
+"She said, she--she--she told her--she said that--that----"
+he could get no farther.
+
+Then he faced about and entered his room, closing the door
+behind him.  For a long time he sat in his armchair, drawn
+close to the wall in front of the table on which stood his
+piles of pamphlets and his little binding apparatus.
+
+"I wonder," said Trina, as she crossed the yard back of
+Zerkow's house, "I wonder what rent Zerkow and Maria pay for
+this place. I'll bet it's cheaper than where Mac and I are."
+
+Trina found Maria sitting in front of the kitchen stove, her
+chin upon her breast.  Trina went up to her. She was dead. 
+And as Trina touched her shoulder, her head rolled sideways
+and showed a fearful gash in her throat under her ear.  All
+the front of her dress was soaked through and through.
+
+Trina backed sharply away from the body, drawing her hands
+up to her very shoulders, her eyes staring and wide, an
+expression of unutterable horror twisting her face.
+
+"Oh-h-h!" she exclaimed in a long breath, her voice hardly
+rising above a whisper.  "Oh-h, isn't that horrible!" 
+Suddenly she turned and fled through the front part of the
+house to the street door, that opened upon the little alley. 
+She looked wildly about her.  Directly across the way a
+butcher's boy was getting into his two-wheeled cart drawn up
+in front of the opposite house, while near by a peddler of
+wild game was coming down the street, a brace of ducks in
+his hand.
+
+"Oh, say--say," gasped Trina, trying to get her voice, "say,
+come over here quick."
+
+The butcher's boy paused, one foot on the wheel, and stared.
+Trina beckoned frantically.
+
+"Come over here, come over here quick."
+
+The young fellow swung himself into his seat.
+
+"What's the matter with that woman?" he said, half aloud.
+
+"There's a murder been done," cried Trina, swaying in
+the doorway.
+
+The young fellow drove away, his head over his shoulder,
+staring at Trina with eyes that were fixed and absolutely
+devoid of expression.
+
+"What's the matter with that woman?" he said again to
+himself as he turned the corner.
+
+Trina wondered why she didn't scream, how she could keep
+from it--how, at such a moment as this, she could remember
+that it was improper to make a disturbance and create a
+scene in the street.  The peddler of wild game was looking
+at her suspiciously.  It would not do to tell him.  He would
+go away like the butcher's boy.
+
+"Now, wait a minute," Trina said to herself, speaking aloud.
+She put her hands to her head.  "Now, wait a minute.  It
+won't do for me to lose my wits now.  What must I do?"  She
+looked about her.  There was the same familiar aspect of
+Polk Street. She could see it at the end of the alley.  The
+big market opposite the flat, the delivery carts rattling up
+and down, the great ladies from the avenue at their morning
+shopping, the cable cars trundling past, loaded with
+passengers.  She saw a little boy in a flat leather cap
+whistling and calling for an unseen dog, slapping his small
+knee from time to time.  Two men came out of Frenna's
+saloon, laughing heartily.  Heise the harness-maker stood in
+the vestibule of his shop, a bundle of whittlings in his
+apron of greasy ticking.  And all this was going on, people
+were laughing and living, buying and selling, walking about
+out there on the sunny sidewalks, while behind her in there
+--in there--in there----
+
+Heise started back from the sudden apparition of a white-
+lipped woman in a blue dressing-gown that seemed to rise up
+before him from his very doorstep.
+
+"Well, Mrs. McTeague, you did scare me, for----"
+
+"Oh, come over here quick."  Trina put her hand to her neck;
+swallowing something that seemed to be choking her. 
+"Maria's killed--Zerkow's wife--I found her."
+
+"Get out!" exclaimed Heise, "you're joking."
+
+"Come over here--over into the house--I found her--she's
+dead."
+
+Heise dashed across the street on the run, with Trina at his
+heels, a trail of spilled whittlings marking his course. 
+The two ran down the alley.  The wild-game peddler, a woman
+who had been washing down the steps in a neighboring house,
+and a man in a broad-brimmed hat stood at Zerkow's doorway,
+looking in from time to time, and talking together.  They
+seemed puzzled.
+
+"Anything wrong in here?" asked the wild-game peddler as
+Heise and Trina came up.  Two more men stopped on the corner
+of the alley and Polk Street and looked at the group.  A
+woman with a towel round her head raised a window opposite
+Zerkow's house and called to the woman who had been washing
+the steps, "What is it, Mrs. Flint?"
+
+Heise was already inside the house.  He turned to Trina,
+panting from his run.
+
+"Where did you say--where was it--where?"
+
+"In there," said Trina, "farther in--the next room."  They
+burst into the kitchen.
+
+"LORD!" ejaculated Heise, stopping a yard or so from the
+body, and bending down to peer into the gray face with its
+brown lips.
+
+"By God! he's killed her."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Zerkow, by God! he's killed her.  Cut her throat.  He
+always said he would."
+
+"Zerkow?"
+
+"He's killed her.  Her throat's cut.  Good Lord, how she did
+bleed!  By God! he's done for her in good shape this time."
+
+"Oh, I told her--I TOLD her," cried Trina.
+
+"He's done for her SURE this time."
+
+"She said she could always manage--Oh-h!  It's horrible."
+
+"He's done for her sure this trip.  Cut her throat. 
+LORD, how she has BLED!  Did you ever see so much--
+that's murder--that's cold-blooded murder.  He's killed
+her.  Say, we must get a policeman.  Come on."
+
+They turned back through the house.  Half a dozen people--
+the wild-game peddler, the man with the broad-brimmed hat,
+the washwoman, and three other men--were in the front room
+of the junk shop, a bank of excited faces surged at the
+door.  Beyond this, outside, the crowd was packed solid from
+one end of the alley to the other.  Out in Polk Street the
+cable cars were nearly blocked and were bunting a way slowly
+through the throng with clanging bells.  Every window had
+its group.  And as Trina and the harness-maker tried to
+force the way from the door of the junk shop the throng
+suddenly parted right and left before the passage of two
+blue-coated policemen who clove a passage through the press,
+working their elbows energetically.  They were accompanied
+by a third man in citizen's clothes.
+
+Heise and Trina went back into the kitchen with the two
+policemen, the third man in citizen's clothes cleared the
+intruders from the front room of the junk shop and kept the
+crowd back, his arm across the open door.
+
+"Whew!" whistled one of the officers as they came out into
+the kitchen, "cutting scrape?  By George!  SOMEBODY'S
+been using his knife all right."  He turned to the other
+officer.  "Better get the wagon.  There's a box on the
+second corner south.  Now, then," he continued, turning to
+Trina and the harness-maker and taking out his note-book and
+pencil, "I want your names and addresses."
+
+It was a day of tremendous excitement for the entire street.
+Long after the patrol wagon had driven away, the crowd
+remained.  In fact, until seven o'clock that evening groups
+collected about the door of the junk shop, where a policeman
+stood guard, asking all manner of questions, advancing all
+manner of opinions.
+
+"Do you think they'll get him?" asked Ryer of the policeman. 
+A dozen necks craned forward eagerly.
+
+"Hoh, we'll get him all right, easy enough," answered the
+other, with a grand air.
+
+"What?  What's that?  What did he say?" asked the
+people on the outskirts of the group.  Those in front passed
+the answer back.
+
+"He says they'll get him all right, easy enough."
+
+The group looked at the policeman admiringly.
+
+"He's skipped to San Jose."
+
+Where the rumor started, and how, no one knew.  But every
+one seemed persuaded that Zerkow had gone to San Jose.
+
+"But what did he kill her for?  Was he drunk?"
+
+"No, he was crazy, I tell you--crazy in the head.  Thought
+she was hiding some money from him."
+
+Frenna did a big business all day long.  The murder was the
+one subject of conversation.  Little parties were made up in
+his saloon--parties of twos and threes--to go over and have
+a look at the outside of the junk shop.  Heise was the most
+important man the length and breadth of Polk Street; almost
+invariably he accompanied these parties, telling again and
+again of the part he had played in the affair.
+
+"It was about eleven o'clock.  I was standing in front of
+the shop, when Mrs. McTeague--you know, the dentist's wife--
+came running across the street," and so on and so on.
+
+The next day came a fresh sensation.  Polk Street read of it
+in the morning papers.  Towards midnight on the day of the
+murder Zerkow's body had been found floating in the bay near
+Black Point.  No one knew whether he had drowned himself or
+fallen from one of the wharves.  Clutched in both his hands
+was a sack full of old and rusty pans, tin dishes--fully a
+hundred of them--tin cans, and iron knives and forks,
+collected from some dump heap.
+
+"And all this," exclaimed Trina, "on account of a set of
+gold dishes that never existed."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+One day, about a fortnight after the coroner's inquest had
+been held, and when the excitement of the terrible affair
+was calming down and Polk Street beginning to resume its
+monotonous routine, Old Grannis sat in his clean, well-kept
+little room, in his cushioned armchair, his hands lying idly
+upon his knees.  It was evening; not quite time to light the
+lamps.  Old Grannis had drawn his chair close to the wall--
+so close, in fact, that he could hear Miss Baker's grenadine
+brushing against the other side of the thin partition, at
+his very elbow, while she rocked gently back and forth, a
+cup of tea in her hands.
+
+Old Grannis's occupation was gone.  That morning the book-
+selling firm where he had bought his pamphlets had taken his
+little binding apparatus from him to use as a model.  The
+transaction had been concluded.  Old Grannis had received
+his check.  It was large enough, to be sure, but when all
+was over, he returned to his room and sat there sad and
+unoccupied, looking at the pattern in the carpet and
+counting the heads of the tacks in the zinc guard that was
+fastened to the wall behind his little stove.  By and by he
+heard Miss Baker moving about. It was five o'clock, the time
+when she was accustomed to make her cup of tea and "keep
+company" with him on her side of the partition.  Old Grannis
+drew up his chair to the wall near where he knew she was
+sitting.  The minutes passed; side by side, and separated by
+only a couple of inches of board, the two old people sat
+there together, while the afternoon grew darker.
+
+But for Old Grannis all was different that evening. There
+was nothing for him to do.  His hands lay idly in his lap. 
+His table, with its pile of pamphlets, was in a far corner
+of the room, and, from time to time, stirred with an
+uncertain trouble, he turned his head and looked at it
+sadly, reflecting that he would never use it again.  The
+absence of his accustomed work seemed to leave something out
+of his life.  It did not appear to him that he could be the
+same to Miss Baker now; their little habits were
+disarranged, their customs broken up.  He could no longer
+fancy himself so near to her.  They would drift apart now,
+and she would no longer make herself a cup of tea and "keep
+company" with him when she knew that he would never again
+sit before his table binding uncut pamphlets.  He had sold
+his happiness for money; he had bartered all his tardy
+romance for some miserable banknotes.  He had not foreseen
+that it would be like this. A vast regret welled up within
+him.  What was that on the back of his hand?  He wiped it
+dry with his ancient silk handkerchief.
+
+Old Grannis leant his face in his hands.  Not only did an
+inexplicable regret stir within him, but a certain great
+tenderness came upon him.  The tears that swam in his faded
+blue eyes were not altogether those of unhappiness.  No,
+this long-delayed affection that had come upon him in his
+later years filled him with a joy for which tears seemed to
+be the natural expression.  For thirty years his eyes had
+not been wet, but tonight he felt as if he were young again. 
+He had never loved before, and there was still a part of him
+that was only twenty years of age.  He could not tell
+whether he was profoundly sad or deeply happy; but he was
+not ashamed of the tears that brought the smart to his eyes
+and the ache to his throat.  He did not hear the timid
+rapping on his door, and it was not until the door itself
+opened that he looked up quickly and saw the little retired
+dressmaker standing on the threshold, carrying a cup of tea
+on a tiny Japanese tray.  She held it toward him.
+
+"I was making some tea," she said, "and I thought you would
+like to have a cup."
+
+Never after could the little dressmaker understand how she
+had brought herself to do this thing.  One moment she had
+been sitting quietly on her side of the partition, stirring
+her cup of tea with one of her Gorham spoons.  She was
+quiet, she was peaceful. The evening was closing down
+tranquilly.  Her room was the picture of calmness and order. 
+The geraniums blooming in the starch boxes in the window,
+the aged goldfish occasionally turning his iridescent flank
+to catch a sudden glow of the setting sun.  The next moment
+she had been all trepidation.  It seemed to her the most
+natural thing in the world to make a steaming cup of tea and
+carry it in to Old Grannis next door. It seemed to her that
+he was wanting her, that she ought to go to him.  With the
+brusque resolve and intrepidity that sometimes seizes upon
+very timid people--the courage of the coward greater than
+all others--she had presented herself at the old
+Englishman's half-open door, and, when he had not heeded her
+knock, had pushed it open, and at last, after all these
+years, stood upon the threshold of his room.  She had found
+courage enough to explain her intrusion.
+
+"I was making some tea, and I thought you would like to have
+a cup."
+
+Old Grannis dropped his hands upon either arm of his chair,
+and, leaning forward a little, looked at her blankly.  He
+did not speak.
+
+The retired dressmaker's courage had carried her thus far;
+now it deserted her as abruptly as it had come.  Her cheeks
+became scarlet; her funny little false curls trembled with
+her agitation.  What she had done seemed to her indecorous
+beyond expression.  It was an enormity.  Fancy, she had gone
+into his room, INTO HIS ROOM--Mister Grannis's room.
+She had done this--she who could not pass him on the stairs
+without a qualm. What to do she did not know.  She stood, a
+fixture, on the threshold of his room, without even
+resolution enough to beat a retreat.  Helplessly, and with a
+little quaver in her voice, she repeated obstinately:
+
+"I was making some tea, and I thought you would like to have
+a cup of tea."  Her agitation betrayed itself in the
+repetition of the word.  She felt that she could not hold
+the tray out another instant.  Already she was trembling so
+that half the tea was spilled.
+
+Old Grannis still kept silence, still bending forward,
+with wide eyes, his hands gripping the arms of his chair.
+
+Then with the tea-tray still held straight before her, the
+little dressmaker exclaimed tearfully:
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean--I didn't mean--I didn't know it would
+seem like this.  I only meant to be kind and bring you some
+tea; and now it seems SO improper.  I--I--I'm SO
+ashamed!  I don't know what you will think of me.  I--" she
+caught her breath--"improper"--she managed to exclaim,
+"unlady-like--you can never think well of me--I'll go.  I'll
+go."  She turned about.
+
+"Stop," cried Old Grannis, finding his voice at last.  Miss
+Baker paused, looking at him over her shoulder, her eyes
+very wide open, blinking through her tears, for all the
+world like a frightened child.
+
+"Stop," exclaimed the old Englishman, rising to his feet. 
+"I didn't know it was you at first.  I hadn't dreamed--I
+couldn't believe you would be so good, so kind to me.  Oh,"
+he cried, with a sudden sharp breath, "oh, you ARE kind.
+I--I--you have--have made me very happy."
+
+"No, no," exclaimed Miss Baker, ready to sob.  "It was
+unlady-like.  You will--you must think ill of me."  She
+stood in the hall.  The tears were running down her cheeks,
+and she had no free hand to dry them.
+
+"Let me--I'll take the tray from you," cried Old Grannis,
+coming forward.  A tremulous joy came upon him.  Never in
+his life had he been so happy.  At last it had come--come
+when he had least expected it.  That which he had longed for
+and hoped for through so many years, behold, it was come to-
+night.  He felt his awkwardness leaving him.  He was almost
+certain that the little dressmaker loved him, and the
+thought gave him boldness.  He came toward her and took the
+tray from her hands, and, turning back into the room with
+it, made as if to set it upon his table.  But the piles of
+his pamphlets were in the way.  Both of his hands were
+occupied with the tray; he could not make a place for it on
+the table.  He stood for a moment uncertain, his
+embarrassment returning.
+
+"Oh, won't you--won't you please--"  He turned his head,
+looking appealingly at the little old dressmaker.
+
+"Wait, I'll help you," she said.  She came into the room, up
+to the table, and moved the pamphlets to one side.
+
+"Thanks, thanks," murmured Old Grannis, setting down the
+tray.
+
+"Now--now--now I will go back," she exclaimed, hurriedly.
+
+"No--no," returned the old Englishman.  "Don't go, don't go.
+I've been so lonely to-night--and last night too--all this
+year--all my life," he suddenly cried.
+
+"I--I--I've forgotten the sugar."
+
+"But I never take sugar in my tea."
+
+"But it's rather cold, and I've spilled it--almost all of
+it."
+
+"I'll drink it from the saucer."  Old Grannis had drawn up
+his armchair for her.
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't.  This is--this is SO--You must think
+ill of me."  Suddenly she sat down, and resting her elbows
+on the table, hid her face in her hands.
+
+"Think ILL of you?" cried Old Grannis, "think ILL of
+you?  Why, you don't know--you have no idea--all these
+years--living so close to you, I--I--" he paused suddenly. 
+It seemed to him as if the beating of his heart was choking
+him.
+
+"I thought you were binding your books to-night," said Miss
+Baker, suddenly, "and you looked tired.  I thought you
+looked tired when I last saw you, and a cup of tea, you
+know, it--that--that does you so much good when you're
+tired.  But you weren't binding books."
+
+"No, no," returned Old Grannis, drawing up a chair and
+sitting down.  "No, I--the fact is, I've sold my apparatus;
+a firm of booksellers has bought the rights of it."
+
+"And aren't you going to bind books any more?" exclaimed the
+little dressmaker, a shade of disappointment in her manner. 
+"I thought you always did about four o'clock.  I used to
+hear you when I was making tea."
+
+It hardly seemed possible to Miss Baker that she was
+actually talking to Old Grannis, that the two were really
+chatting together, face to face, and without the dreadful
+embarrassment that used to overwhelm them both when they met
+on the stairs. She had often dreamed of this, but had always
+put it off to some far-distant day.  It was to come
+gradually, little by little, instead of, as now, abruptly
+and with no preparation. That she should permit herself the
+indiscretion of actually intruding herself into his room had
+never so much as occurred to her.  Yet here she was, IN
+HIS ROOM, and they were talking together, and little by
+little her embarrassment was wearing away.
+
+"Yes, yes, I always heard you when you were making tea,"
+returned the old Englishman; "I heard the tea things.  Then
+I used to draw my chair and my work-table close to the wall
+on my side, and sit there and work while you drank your tea
+just on the other side; and I used to feel very near to you
+then.  I used to pass the whole evening that way."
+
+"And, yes--yes--I did too," she answered.  "I used to make
+tea just at that time and sit there for a whole hour."
+
+"And didn't you sit close to the partition on your side?
+Sometimes I was sure of it.  I could even fancy that I could
+hear your dress brushing against the wall-paper close beside
+me.  Didn't you sit close to the partition?"
+
+"I--I don't know where I sat."
+
+Old Grannis shyly put out his hand and took hers as it lay
+upon her lap.
+
+"Didn't you sit close to the partition on your side?" he
+insisted.
+
+"No--I don't know--perhaps--sometimes.  Oh, yes," she
+exclaimed, with a little gasp, "Oh, yes, I often did."
+
+Then Old Grannis put his arm about her, and kissed her faded
+cheek, that flushed to pink upon the instant.
+
+After that they spoke but little.  The day lapsed slowly
+into twilight, and the two old people sat there in the gray
+evening, quietly, quietly, their hands in each other's
+hands, "keeping company," but now with nothing to separate
+them.  It had come at last.  After all these years they
+were together; they understood each other.  They stood at
+length in a little Elysium of their own creating.  They
+walked hand in hand in a delicious garden where it was
+always autumn.  Far from the world and together they entered
+upon the long retarded romance of their commonplace and
+uneventful lives.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+
+That same night McTeague was awakened by a shrill scream,
+and woke to find Trina's arms around his neck. She was
+trembling so that the bed-springs creaked.
+
+"Huh?" cried the dentist, sitting up in bed, raising his
+clinched fists.  "Huh?  What?  What?  What is it?  What is
+it?"
+
+"Oh, Mac," gasped his wife, "I had such an awful dream.  I
+dreamed about Maria.  I thought she was chasing me, and I
+couldn't run, and her throat was--Oh, she was all covered
+with blood.  Oh-h, I am so frightened!"
+
+Trina had borne up very well for the first day or so after
+the affair, and had given her testimony to the coroner with
+far greater calmness than Heise.  It was only a week later
+that the horror of the thing came upon her again.  She was
+so nervous that she hardly dared to be alone in the daytime,
+and almost every night woke with a cry of terror, trembling
+with the recollection of some dreadful nightmare.  The
+dentist was irritated beyond all expression by her
+nervousness, and especially was he exasperated when her
+cries woke him suddenly in the middle of the night.  He
+would sit up in bed, rolling his eyes wildly, throwing out
+his huge fists--at what, he did not know--exclaiming, "What
+what--" bewildered and hopelessly confused.  Then when
+he realized that it was only Trina, his anger kindled
+abruptly.
+
+"Oh, you and your dreams!  You go to sleep, or I'll give you
+a dressing down."  Sometimes he would hit her a great thwack
+with his open palm, or catch her hand and bite the tips of
+her fingers.   Trina would lie awake for hours afterward,
+crying softly to herself.  Then, by and by, "Mac," she would
+say timidly.
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Mac, do you love me?"
+
+"Huh?  What?  Go to sleep."
+
+"Don't you love me any more, Mac?"
+
+"Oh, go to sleep.  Don't bother me."
+
+"Well, do you LOVE me, Mac?"
+
+"I guess so."
+
+"Oh, Mac, I've only you now, and if you don't love me, what
+is going to become of me?"
+
+"Shut up, an' let me go to sleep."
+
+"Well, just tell me that you love me."
+
+The dentist would turn abruptly away from her, burying his
+big blond head in the pillow, and covering up his ears with
+the blankets.  Then Trina would sob herself to sleep.
+
+The dentist had long since given up looking for a job. 
+Between breakfast and supper time Trina saw but little of
+him.  Once the morning meal over, McTeague bestirred
+himself, put on his cap--he had given up wearing even a hat
+since his wife had made him sell his silk hat--and went out. 
+He had fallen into the habit of taking long and solitary
+walks beyond the suburbs of the city. Sometimes it was to
+the Cliff House, occasionally to the Park (where he would
+sit on the sun-warmed benches, smoking his pipe and reading
+ragged ends of old newspapers), but more often it was to the
+Presidio Reservation.  McTeague would walk out to the end of
+the Union Street car line, entering the Reservation at the
+terminus, then he would work down to the shore of the bay,
+follow the shore line to the Old Fort at the Golden Gate,
+and, turning the Point here, come out suddenly upon the full
+sweep of the Pacific.  Then he would follow the beach
+down to a certain point of rocks that he knew.  Here he
+would turn inland, climbing the bluffs to a rolling grassy
+down sown with blue iris and a yellow flower that he did not
+know the name of.  On the far side of this down was a broad,
+well-kept road. McTeague would keep to this road until he
+reached the city again by the way of the Sacramento Street
+car line.  The dentist loved these walks.  He liked to be
+alone.  He liked the solitude of the tremendous, tumbling
+ocean; the fresh, windy downs; he liked to feel the gusty
+Trades flogging his face, and he would remain for hours
+watching the roll and plunge of the breakers with the
+silent, unreasoned enjoyment of a child.  All at once he
+developed a passion for fishing.  He would sit all day
+nearly motionless upon a point of rocks, his fish-line
+between his fingers, happy if he caught three perch in
+twelve hours.  At noon he would retire to a bit of level
+turf around an angle of the shore and cook his fish, eating
+them without salt or knife or fork.  He thrust a pointed
+stick down the mouth of the perch, and turned it slowly over
+the blaze.  When the grease stopped dripping, he knew that
+it was done, and would devour it slowly and with tremendous
+relish, picking the bones clean, eating even the head.  He
+remembered how often he used to do this sort of thing when
+he was a boy in the mountains of Placer County, before he
+became a car-boy at the mine.  The dentist enjoyed himself
+hugely during these days.  The instincts of the old-time
+miner were returning.  In the stress of his misfortune
+McTeague was lapsing back to his early estate.
+
+One evening as he reached home after such a tramp, he was
+surprised to find Trina standing in front of what had been
+Zerkow's house, looking at it thoughtfully, her finger on
+her lips.
+
+"What you doing here'?" growled the dentist as he came up.
+There was a "Rooms-to-let" sign on the street door of the
+house.
+
+"Now we've found a place to move to," exclaimed Trina.
+
+"What?" cried McTeague.  "There, in that dirty house, where
+you found Maria?"
+
+"I can't afford that room in the flat any more, now that you
+can't get any work to do."
+
+"But there's where Zerkow killed Maria--the very house
+--an' you wake up an' squeal in the night just thinking of
+it."
+
+"I know.  I know it will be bad at first, but I'll get used
+to it, an' it's just half again as cheap as where we are
+now.  I was looking at a room; we can have it dirt cheap. 
+It's a back room over the kitchen.  A German family are
+going to take the front part of the house and sublet the
+rest.  I'm going to take it.  It'll be money in my pocket."
+
+"But it won't be any in mine," vociferated the dentist,
+angrily.  "I'll have to live in that dirty rat hole just
+so's you can save money.  I ain't any the better off for
+it."
+
+"Find work to do, and then we'll talk," declared Trina.
+"I'M going to save up some money against a rainy day; and if
+I can save more by living here I'm going to do it, even if
+it is the house Maria was killed in.  I don't care."
+
+"All right," said McTeague, and did not make any further
+protest.  His wife looked at him surprised.  She could not
+understand this sudden acquiescence.  Perhaps McTeague was
+so much away from home of late that he had ceased to care
+where or how he lived.  But this sudden change troubled her
+a little for all that.
+
+The next day the McTeagues moved for a second time.  It did
+not take them long.  They were obliged to buy the bed from
+the landlady, a circumstance which nearly broke Trina's
+heart; and this bed, a couple of chairs, Trina's trunk, an
+ornament or two, the oil stove, and some plates and kitchen
+ware were all that they could call their own now; and this
+back room in that wretched house with its grisly memories,
+the one window looking out into a grimy maze of back yards
+and broken sheds, was what they now knew as their home.
+
+The McTeagues now began to sink rapidly lower and lower. 
+They became accustomed to their surroundings. Worst of all,
+Trina lost her pretty ways and her good looks.  The combined
+effects of hard work, avarice, poor food, and her husband's
+brutalities told on her swiftly.  Her charming little figure
+grew coarse, stunted, and dumpy.  She who had once been of a
+catlike neatness, now slovened all day about the room
+in a dirty flannel wrapper, her slippers clap-clapping after
+her as she walked.  At last she even neglected her hair, the
+wonderful swarthy tiara, the coiffure of a queen, that
+shaded her little pale forehead. In the morning she braided
+it before it was half combed, and piled and coiled it about
+her head in haphazard fashion.  It came down half a dozen
+times a day; by evening it was an unkempt, tangled mass, a
+veritable rat's nest.
+
+Ah, no, it was not very gay, that life of hers, when one had
+to rustle for two, cook and work and wash, to say nothing of
+paying the rent.  What odds was it if she was slatternly,
+dirty, coarse?  Was there time to make herself look
+otherwise, and who was there to be pleased when she was all
+prinked out?  Surely not a great brute of a husband who bit
+you like a dog, and kicked and pounded you as though you
+were made of iron.  Ah, no, better let things go, and take
+it as easy as you could.  Hump your back, and it was soonest
+over.
+
+The one room grew abominably dirty, reeking with the odors
+of cooking and of "non-poisonous" paint.  The bed was not
+made until late in the afternoon, sometimes not at all.
+Dirty, unwashed crockery, greasy knives, sodden fragments of
+yesterday's meals cluttered the table, while in one corner
+was the heap of evil-smelling, dirty linen.  Cockroaches
+appeared in the crevices of the woodwork, the wall-paper
+bulged from the damp walls and began to peel.  Trina had
+long ago ceased to dust or to wipe the furniture with a bit
+of rag.  The grime grew thick upon the window panes and in
+the corners of the room.  All the filth of the alley invaded
+their quarters like a rising muddy tide.
+
+Between the windows, however, the faded photograph of the
+couple in their wedding finery looked down upon the
+wretchedness, Trina still holding her set bouquet straight
+before her, McTeague standing at her side, his left foot
+forward, in the attitude of a Secretary of State; while near
+by hung the canary, the one thing the dentist clung to
+obstinately, piping and chittering all day in its little
+gilt prison.
+
+And the tooth, the gigantic golden molar of French gilt,
+enormous and ungainly, sprawled its branching prongs in
+one corner of the room, by the footboard of the bed.  The
+McTeague's had come to use it as a sort of substitute for a
+table.  After breakfast and supper Trina piled the plates
+and greasy dishes upon it to have them out of the way.
+
+One afternoon the Other Dentist, McTeague's old-time rival,
+the wearer of marvellous waistcoats, was surprised out of
+all countenance to receive a visit from McTeague.  The Other
+Dentist was in his operating room at the time, at work upon
+a plaster-of-paris mould.  To his call of "'Come right in. 
+Don't you see the sign, 'Enter without knocking'?"  McTeague
+came in. He noted at once how airy and cheerful was the
+room.  A little fire coughed and tittered on the hearth, a
+brindled greyhound sat on his haunches watching it intently,
+a great mirror over the mantle offered to view an array of
+actresses' pictures thrust between the glass and the frame,
+and a big bunch of freshly-cut violets stood in a glass bowl
+on the polished cherrywood table.  The Other Dentist came
+forward briskly, exclaiming cheerfully:
+
+"Oh, Doctor--Mister McTeague, how do? how do?"
+
+The fellow was actually wearing a velvet smoking jacket.  A
+cigarette was between his lips; his patent leather boots
+reflected the firelight.  McTeague wore a black surah
+neglige shirt without a cravat; huge buckled brogans, hob-
+nailed, gross, encased his feet; the hems of his trousers
+were spotted with mud; his coat was frayed at the sleeves
+and a button was gone. In three days he had not shaved; his
+shock of heavy blond hair escaped from beneath the visor of
+his woollen cap and hung low over his forehead.  He stood
+with awkward, shifting feet and uncertain eyes before the
+dapper young fellow who reeked of the barber shop, and whom
+he had once ordered from his rooms.
+
+"What can I do for you this morning, Mister McTeague? 
+Something wrong with the teeth, eh?"
+
+"No, no."  McTeague, floundering in the difficulties of his
+speech, forgot the carefully rehearsed words with which he
+had intended to begin this interview.
+
+"I want to sell you my sign," he said, stupidly.  "That big
+tooth of French gilt--YOU know--that you made an
+offer for once."
+
+"Oh, I don't want that now," said the other loftily. "I
+prefer a little quiet signboard, nothing pretentious--just
+the name, and "Dentist" after it.  These big signs are
+vulgar.  No, I don't want it."
+
+McTeague remained, looking about on the floor, horribly
+embarrassed, not knowing whether to go or to stay.
+
+"But I don't know," said the Other Dentist, reflectively. 
+"If it will help you out any--I guess you're pretty hard up
+--I'll--well, I tell you what--I'll give you five dollars for
+it."
+
+"All right, all right."
+
+On the following Thursday morning McTeague woke to hear the
+eaves dripping and the prolonged rattle of the rain upon the
+roof.
+
+"Raining," he growled, in deep disgust, sitting up in bed,
+and winking at the blurred window.
+
+"It's been raining all night," said Trina.  She was already
+up and dressed, and was cooking breakfast on the oil stove.
+
+McTeague dressed himself, grumbling, "Well, I'll go, anyhow.
+The fish will bite all the better for the rain."
+
+"Look here, Mac," said Trina, slicing a bit of bacon as
+thinly as she could.  "Look here, why don't you bring some
+of your fish home sometime?"
+
+"Huh!" snorted the dentist, "so's we could have 'em for
+breakfast.  Might save you a nickel, mightn't it?"
+
+"Well, and if it did!  Or you might fish for the market. 
+The fisherman across the street would buy 'em of you."
+
+"Shut up!" exclaimed the dentist, and Trina obediently
+subsided.
+
+"Look here," continued her husband, fumbling in his trousers
+pocket and bringing out a dollar, "I'm sick and tired of
+coffee and bacon and mashed potatoes.  Go over to the market
+and get some kind of meat for breakfast.  Get a steak, or
+chops, or something.
+
+"Why, Mac, that's a whole dollar, and he only gave you five
+for your sign.  We can't afford it.  Sure, Mac.  Let me put
+that money away against a rainy day.  You're just as
+well off without meat for breakfast."
+
+"You do as I tell you.  Get some steak, or chops, or
+something."
+
+"Please, Mac, dear."
+
+"Go on, now.  I'll bite your fingers again pretty soon."
+
+"But----"
+
+The dentist took a step towards her, snatching at her hand.
+
+"All right, I'll go," cried Trina, wincing and shrinking. 
+"I'll go."
+
+She did not get the chops at the big market, however.
+Instead, she hurried to a cheaper butcher shop on a side
+street two blocks away, and bought fifteen cents' worth of
+chops from a side of mutton some two or three days old.  She
+was gone some little time.
+
+"Give me the change," exclaimed the dentist as soon as she
+returned.  Trina handed him a quarter; and when McTeague was
+about to protest, broke in upon him with a rapid stream of
+talk that confused him upon the instant.  But for that
+matter, it was never difficult for Trina to deceive the
+dentist.  He never went to the bottom of things.  He would
+have believed her if she had told him the chops had cost a
+dollar.
+
+"There's sixty cents saved, anyhow," thought Trina, as she
+clutched the money in her pocket to keep it from rattling.
+
+Trina cooked the chops, and they breakfasted in silence. 
+"Now," said McTeague as he rose, wiping the coffee from his
+thick mustache with the hollow of his palm, "now I'm going
+fishing, rain or no rain.  I'm going to be gone all day."
+
+He stood for a moment at the door, his fish-line in his
+hand, swinging the heavy sinker back and forth.  He looked
+at Trina as she cleared away the breakfast things.
+
+"So long," said he, nodding his huge square-cut head. This
+amiability in the matter of leave taking was unusual.  Trina 
+put the dishes down and came up to him, her little chin,
+once so adorable, in the air:
+
+"Kiss me good-by, Mac," she said, putting her arms around
+his neck.  "You DO love me a little yet, don't you,
+Mac?  We'll be happy again some day.  This is hard times
+now, but we'll pull out.  You'll find something to do pretty
+soon."
+
+"I guess so," growled McTeague, allowing her to kiss
+him.
+
+The canary was stirring nimbly in its cage, and just now
+broke out into a shrill trilling, its little throat bulging
+and quivering.  The dentist stared at it. "Say," he remarked
+slowly, "I think I'll take that bird of mine along."
+
+"Sell it?" inquired Trina.
+
+"Yes, yes, sell it."
+
+"Well, you ARE coming to your senses at last," answered
+Trina, approvingly.   "But don't you let the bird-store man
+cheat you.  That's a good songster; and with the cage, you
+ought to make him give you five dollars.  You stick out for
+that at first, anyhow."
+
+McTeague unhooked the cage and carefully wrapped it in an
+old newspaper, remarking, "He might get cold.  Well, so
+long," he repeated, "so long."
+
+"Good-by, Mac."
+
+When he was gone, Trina took the sixty cents she had stolen
+from him out of her pocket and recounted it. "It's sixty
+cents, all right," she said proudly.  "But I DO believe
+that dime is too smooth."  She looked at it critically.  The
+clock on the power-house of the Sutter Street cable struck
+eight.  "Eight o'clock already," she exclaimed.  "I must get
+to work."  She cleared the breakfast things from the table,
+and drawing up her chair and her workbox began painting the
+sets of Noah's ark animals she had whittled the day before. 
+She worked steadily all the morning.  At noon she lunched,
+warming over the coffee left from breakfast, and frying a
+couple of sausages.  By one she was bending over her table
+again.  Her fingers--some of them lacerated by McTeague's
+teeth--flew, and the little pile of cheap toys in the basket
+at her elbow grew steadily.
+
+"Where DO all the toys go to?" she murmured.  "The
+thousands and thousands of these Noah's arks that I have
+made--horses and chickens and elephants--and always there
+never seems to be enough.  It's a good thing for me that
+children break their things, and that they all have to
+have birthdays and Christmases."  She dipped her brush into
+a pot of Vandyke brown and painted one of the whittled toy
+horses in two strokes.  Then a touch of ivory black with a
+small flat brush created the tail and mane, and dots of
+Chinese white made the eyes.  The turpentine in the paint
+dried it almost immediately, and she tossed the completed
+little horse into the basket.
+
+At six o'clock the dentist had not returned.  Trina waited
+until seven, and then put her work away, and ate her supper
+alone.
+
+"I wonder what's keeping Mac," she exclaimed as the clock
+from the power-house on Sutter Street struck half-past
+seven.  "I KNOW he's drinking somewhere," she cried,
+apprehensively.  "He had the money from his sign with him."
+
+At eight o'clock she threw a shawl over her head and went
+over to the harness shop.  If anybody would know where
+McTeague was it would be Heise.  But the harness-maker had
+seen nothing of him since the day before.
+
+"He was in here yesterday afternoon, and we had a drink or
+two at Frenna's.  Maybe he's been in there to-day."
+
+"Oh, won't you go in and see?" said Trina.  "Mac always came
+home to his supper--he never likes to miss his meals--and
+I'm getting frightened about him."
+
+Heise went into the barroom next door, and returned with no
+definite news. Frenna had not seen the dentist since he had
+come in with the harness-maker the previous afternoon. 
+Trina even humbled herself to ask of the Ryers--with whom
+they had quarrelled--if they knew anything of the dentist's
+whereabouts, but received a contemptuous negative.
+
+"Maybe he's come in while I've been out," said Trina to
+herself.  She went down Polk Street again, going towards the
+flat.  The rain had stopped, but the sidewalks were still
+glistening.  The cable cars trundled by, loaded with
+theatregoers.  The barbers were just closing their shops. 
+The candy store on the corner was brilliantly lighted and
+was filling up, while the green and yellow lamps from the
+drug store directly opposite threw kaleidoscopic reflections
+deep down into the shining surface of the asphalt.  A
+band of Salvationists began to play and pray in front
+of Frenna's saloon.  Trina hurried on down the gay street,
+with its evening's brilliancy and small activities, her
+shawl over her head, one hand lifting her faded skirt from
+off the wet pavements.  She turned into the alley, entered
+Zerkow's old home by the ever-open door, and ran up-stairs
+to the room.  Nobody.
+
+"Why, isn't this FUNNY," she exclaimed, half aloud,
+standing on the threshold, her little milk-white forehead
+curdling to a frown, one sore finger on her lips.  Then a
+great fear seized upon her.  Inevitably she associated the
+house with a scene of violent death.
+
+"No, no," she said to the darkness, "Mac is all right. 
+HE can take care of himself."  But for all that she had a
+clear-cut vision of her husband's body, bloated with sea-
+water, his blond hair streaming like kelp, rolling inertly
+in shifting waters.
+
+"He couldn't have fallen off the rocks," she declared
+firmly. "There--THERE he is now."  She heaved a great
+sigh of relief as a heavy tread sounded in the hallway
+below.  She ran to the banisters, looking over, and calling,
+"Oh, Mac!  Is that you, Mac?"  It was the German whose
+family occupied the lower floor. The power-house clock
+struck nine.
+
+"My God, where is Mac?" cried Trina, stamping her foot.
+
+She put the shawl over her head again, and went out and
+stood on the corner of the alley and Polk Street, watching
+and waiting, craning her neck to see down the street.  Once,
+even, she went out upon the sidewalk in front of the flat
+and sat down for a moment upon the horse-block there.  She
+could not help remembering the day when she had been driven
+up to that horse-block in a hack.  Her mother and father and
+Owgooste and the twins were with her.  It was her wedding
+day.  Her wedding dress was in a huge tin trunk on the
+driver's seat.  She had never been happier before in all her
+life.  She remembered how she got out of the hack and stood
+for a moment upon the horse-block, looking up at McTeague's
+windows.  She had caught a glimpse of him at his shaving,
+the lather still on his cheek, and they had waved their
+hands at each other.  Instinctively Trina looked up at the
+flat behind her; looked up at the bay window where her
+husband's "Dental Parlors" had been.  It was all dark; the
+windows had the blind, sightless appearance imparted by
+vacant, untenanted rooms.  A rusty iron rod projected
+mournfully from one of the window ledges.
+
+"There's where our sign hung once," said Trina.  She turned
+her head and looked down Polk Street towards where the Other
+Dentist had his rooms, and there, overhanging the street
+from his window, newly furbished and brightened, hung the
+huge tooth, her birthday present to her husband, flashing
+and glowing in the white glare of the electric lights like a
+beacon of defiance and triumph.
+
+"Ah, no; ah, no," whispered Trina, choking back a sob. 
+"Life isn't so gay.  But I wouldn't mind, no I wouldn't mind
+anything, if only Mac was home all right."  She got up from
+the horse-block and stood again on the corner of the alley,
+watching and listening.
+
+It grew later.  The hours passed.  Trina kept at her post. 
+The noise of approaching footfalls grew less and less
+frequent. Little by little Polk Street dropped back into
+solitude.  Eleven o'clock struck from the power-house clock;
+lights were extinguished; at one o'clock the cable stopped,
+leaving an abrupt and numbing silence in the air.  All at
+once it seemed very still.  The only noises were the
+occasional footfalls of a policeman and the persistent
+calling of ducks and geese in the closed market across the
+way.  The street was asleep.
+
+When it is night and dark, and one is awake and alone, one's
+thoughts take the color of the surroundings; become gloomy,
+sombre, and very dismal.  All at once an idea came to Trina,
+a dark, terrible idea; worse, even, than the idea of
+McTeague's death.
+
+"Oh, no," she cried.  "Oh, no.  It isn't true.  But suppose
+--suppose."
+
+She left her post and hurried back to the house.
+
+"No, no," she was saying under her breath, "it isn't
+possible. Maybe he's even come home already by another way. 
+But suppose--suppose--suppose."
+
+She ran up the stairs, opened the door of the room, and
+paused, out of breath.  The room was dark and empty.  With
+cold, trembling fingers she lighted the lamp, and, turning
+about, looked at her trunk.  The lock was burst.
+
+"No, no, no," cried Trina, "it's not true; it's not true."  
+She dropped on her knees before the trunk, and tossed back
+the lid, and plunged her hands down into the corner
+underneath her wedding dress, where she always kept the
+savings.  The brass match-safe and the chamois-skin bag were
+there.  They were empty.
+
+Trina flung herself full length upon the floor, burying her
+face in her arms, rolling her head from side to side.  Her
+voice rose to a wail.
+
+"No, no, no, it's not true; it's not true; it's not true. 
+Oh, he couldn't have done it.  Oh, how could he have done
+it?  All my money, all my little savings--and deserted me. 
+He's gone, my money's gone, my dear money--my dear, dear
+gold pieces that I've worked so hard for.  Oh, to have
+deserted me--gone for good--gone and never coming back--gone
+with my gold pieces. Gone-gone--gone.  I'll never see them
+again, and I've worked so hard, so so hard for him--for
+them.  No, no, NO, it's not true.  It IS true.  What
+will become of me now?  Oh, if you'll only come back you can
+have all the money--half of it. Oh, give me back my money. 
+Give me back my money, and I'll forgive you.  You can leave
+me then if you want to.  Oh, my money.  Mac, Mac, you've
+gone for good.  You don't love me any more, and now I'm a
+beggar.  My money's gone, my husband's gone, gone, gone,
+gone!"
+
+Her grief was terrible.  She dug her nails into her scalp,
+and clutching the heavy coils of her thick black hair tore
+it again and again.  She struck her forehead with her
+clenched fists. Her little body shook from head to foot with
+the violence of her sobbing.  She ground her small teeth
+together and beat her head upon the floor with all her
+strength.
+
+Her hair was uncoiled and hanging a tangled, dishevelled
+mass far below her waist; her dress was torn; a spot of
+blood was upon her forehead; her eyes were swollen; her
+cheeks flamed vermilion from the fever that raged in
+her veins.  Old Miss Baker found her thus towards five
+o'clock the next morning.
+
+What had happened between one o'clock and dawn of that
+fearful night Trina never remembered.  She could only recall
+herself, as in a picture, kneeling before her broken and
+rifled trunk, and then--weeks later, so it seemed to her--
+she woke to find herself in her own bed with an iced bandage
+about her forehead and the little old dressmaker at her
+side, stroking her hot, dry palm.
+
+The facts of the matter were that the German woman who lived
+below had been awakened some hours after midnight by the
+sounds of Trina's weeping.  She had come upstairs and into
+the room to find Trina stretched face downward upon the
+floor, half-conscious and sobbing, in the throes of an
+hysteria for which there was no relief.  The woman,
+terrified, had called her husband, and between them they had
+got Trina upon the bed.  Then the German woman happened to
+remember that Trina had friends in the big flat near by, and
+had sent her husband to fetch the retired dressmaker, while
+she herself remained behind to undress Trina and put her to
+bed.  Miss Baker had come over at once, and began to cry
+herself at the sight of the dentist's poor little wife.  She
+did not stop to ask what the trouble was, and indeed it
+would have been useless to attempt to get any coherent
+explanation from Trina at that time.  Miss Baker had sent
+the German woman's husband to get some ice at one of the
+"all-night" restaurants of the street; had kept cold, wet
+towels on Trina's head; had combed and recombed her
+wonderful thick hair; and had sat down by the side of the
+bed, holding her hot hand, with its poor maimed fingers,
+waiting patiently until Trina should be able to speak.
+
+Towards morning Trina awoke--or perhaps it was a mere
+regaining of consciousness--looked a moment at Miss Baker,
+then about the room until her eyes fell upon her trunk with
+its broken lock. Then she turned over upon the pillow and
+began to sob again. She refused to answer any of the little
+dressmaker's questions, shaking her head violently, her face
+hidden in the pillow.
+
+By breakfast time her fever had increased to such a point
+that Miss Baker took matters into her own hands and had the
+German woman call a doctor.  He arrived some twenty
+minutes later.  He was a big, kindly fellow who lived over
+the drug store on the corner.  He had a deep voice and a
+tremendous striding gait less suggestive of a physician than
+of a sergeant of a cavalry troop.
+
+By the time of his arrival little Miss Baker had divined
+intuitively the entire trouble.  She heard the doctor's
+swinging tramp in the entry below, and heard the German
+woman saying:
+
+"Righd oop der stairs, at der back of der halle.  Der room
+mit der door oppen."
+
+Miss Baker met the doctor at the landing, she told him in a
+whisper of the trouble.
+
+"Her husband's deserted her, I'm afraid, doctor, and took
+all of her money--a good deal of it.  It's about killed the
+poor child.  She was out of her head a good deal of the
+night, and now she's got a raging fever."
+
+The doctor and Miss Baker returned to the room and entered,
+closing the door.  The big doctor stood for a moment looking
+down at Trina rolling her head from side to side upon the
+pillow, her face scarlet, her enormous mane of hair spread
+out on either side of her.  The little dressmaker remained
+at his elbow, looking from him to Trina.
+
+"Poor little woman!" said the doctor; "poor little woman!"
+
+Miss Baker pointed to the trunk, whispering:
+
+"See, there's where she kept her savings.  See, he broke the
+lock."
+
+"Well, Mrs. McTeague," said the doctor, sitting down by the
+bed, and taking Trina's wrist, "a little fever, eh?"
+
+Trina opened her eyes and looked at him, and then at Miss
+Baker.  She did not seem in the least surprised at the
+unfamiliar faces.  She appeared to consider it all as a
+matter of course.
+
+"Yes," she said, with a long, tremulous breath, "I have a
+fever, and my head--my head aches and aches."
+
+The doctor prescribed rest and mild opiates.  Then his eye
+fell upon the fingers of Trina's right hand.  He looked at
+them sharply.  A deep red glow, unmistakable to a
+physician's eyes, was upon some of them, extending from
+the finger tips up to the second knuckle.
+
+"Hello," he exclaimed, "what's the matter here?"  In fact
+something was very wrong indeed.  For days Trina had noticed
+it.  The fingers of her right hand had swollen as never
+before, aching and discolored. Cruelly lacerated by
+McTeague's brutality as they were, she had nevertheless gone
+on about her work on the Noah's ark animals, constantly in
+contact with the "non-poisonous" paint.  She told as much to
+the doctor in answer to his questions.  He shook his head
+with an exclamation.
+
+"Why, this is blood-poisoning, you know," he told her; "the
+worst kind.  You'll have to have those fingers amputated,
+beyond a doubt, or lose the entire hand--or even worse."
+
+"And my work!" exclaimed Trina.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+
+One can hold a scrubbing-brush with two good fingers and the
+stumps of two others even if both joints of the thumb are
+gone, but it takes considerable practice to get used to it.
+
+Trina became a scrub-woman.  She had taken council of
+Selina, and through her had obtained the position of care-
+taker in a little memorial kindergarten over on Pacific
+Street.  Like Polk Street, it was an accommodation street,
+but running through a much poorer and more sordid quarter. 
+Trina had a little room over the kindergarten schoolroom.
+It was not an unpleasant room.  It looked out upon a sunny
+little court floored with boards and used as the children's
+playground.  Two great cherry trees grew here, the leaves
+almost brushing against the window of Trina's room and
+filtering the sunlight so that it fell in round golden spots
+upon the floor of the room.  "Like gold pieces," Trina said
+to herself.
+
+Trina's work consisted in taking care of the kindergarten
+rooms, scrubbing the floors, washing the windows, dusting
+and airing, and carrying out the ashes.  Besides this she
+earned some five dollars a month by washing down the front
+steps of some big flats on Washington Street, and by
+cleaning out vacant houses after the tenants had left.  She
+saw no one.  Nobody knew her. She went about her work from
+dawn to dark, and often entire days passed when she did not
+hear the sound of her own voice.  She was alone, a solitary,
+abandoned woman, lost in the lowest eddies of the great
+city's tide--the tide that always ebbs.
+
+When Trina had been discharged from the hospital after the
+operation on her fingers, she found herself alone in the
+world, alone with her five thousand dollars.  The interest
+of this would support her, and yet allow her to save a
+little.
+
+But for a time Trina had thought of giving up the fight
+altogether and of joining her family in the southern part of
+the State.  But even while she hesitated about this she
+received a long letter from her mother, an answer to one she
+herself had written just before the amputation of her right-
+hand fingers--the last letter she would ever be able to
+write.  Mrs. Sieppe's letter was one long lamentation; she
+had her own misfortunes to bewail as well as those of her
+daughter.  The carpet-cleaning and upholstery business had
+failed. Mr. Sieppe and Owgooste had left for New Zealand
+with a colonization company, whither Mrs. Sieppe and the
+twins were to follow them as soon as the colony established
+itself.  So far from helping Trina in her ill fortune, it
+was she, her mother, who might some day in the near future
+be obliged to turn to Trina for aid.  So Trina had given up
+the idea of any help from her family.  For that matter she
+needed none.  She still had her five thousand, and Uncle
+Oelbermann paid her the interest with a machine-like
+regularity.  Now that McTeague had left her, there was one
+less mouth to feed; and with this saving, together with the
+little she could earn as scrub-woman, Trina could
+almost manage to make good the amount she lost by being
+obliged to cease work upon the Noah's ark animals.
+
+Little by little her sorrow over the loss of her precious
+savings overcame the grief of McTeague's desertion of her. 
+Her avarice had grown to be her one dominant passion; her
+love of money for the money's sake brooded in her heart,
+driving out by degrees every other natural affection.  She
+grew thin and meagre; her flesh clove tight to her small
+skeleton; her small pale mouth and little uplifted chin grew
+to have a certain feline eagerness of expression; her long,
+narrow eyes glistened continually, as if they caught and
+held the glint of metal.  One day as she sat in her room,
+the empty brass match-box and the limp chamois bag in her
+hands, she suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"I could have forgiven him if he had only gone away and left
+me my money.  I could have--yes, I could have forgiven him
+even THIS"--she looked at the stumps of her fingers.
+"But now," her teeth closed tight and her eyes flashed,
+"now--I'll--never--forgive--him--as-long--as--I--live."
+
+The empty bag and the hollow, light match-box troubled her. 
+Day after day she took them from her trunk and wept over
+them as other women weep over a dead baby's shoe.  Her four
+hundred dollars were gone, were gone, were gone.  She would
+never see them again.  She could plainly see her husband
+spending her savings by handfuls; squandering her beautiful
+gold pieces that she had been at such pains to polish with
+soap and ashes.  The thought filled her with an unspeakable
+anguish.  She would wake at night from a dream of McTeague
+revelling down her money, and ask of the darkness, "How much
+did he spend to-day?  How many of the gold pieces are left? 
+Has he broken either of the two twenty-dollar pieces yet? 
+What did he spend it for?"
+
+The instant she was out of the hospital Trina had begun to
+save again, but now it was with an eagerness that amounted
+at times to a veritable frenzy.  She even denied herself
+lights and fuel in order to put by a quarter or so, grudging
+every penny she was obliged to spend.  She did her own
+washing and cooking.  Finally she sold her wedding dress,
+that had hitherto lain in the bottom of her trunk.
+
+The day she moved from Zerkow's old house, she came suddenly
+upon the dentist's concertina under a heap of old clothes in
+the closet.  Within twenty minutes she had sold it to the
+dealer in second-hand furniture, returning to her room with
+seven dollars in her pocket, happy for the first time since
+McTeague had left her.
+
+But for all that the match-box and the bag refused to fill
+up; after three weeks of the most rigid economy they
+contained but eighteen dollars and some small change.  What
+was that compared with four hundred?  Trina told herself
+that she must have her money in hand.  She longed to see
+again the heap of it upon her work-table, where she could
+plunge her hands into it, her face into it, feeling the
+cool, smooth metal upon her cheeks.  At such moments she
+would see in her imagination her wonderful five thousand
+dollars piled in columns, shining and gleaming somewhere at
+the bottom of Uncle Oelbermann's vault.  She would look at
+the paper that Uncle Oelbermann had given her, and tell
+herself that it represented five thousand dollars.  But in
+the end this ceased to satisfy her, she must have the money
+itself. She must have her four hundred dollars back again,
+there in her trunk, in her bag and her match-box, where she
+could touch it and see it whenever she desired.
+
+At length she could stand it no longer, and one day
+presented herself before Uncle Oelbermann as he sat in his
+office in the wholesale toy store, and told him she wanted
+to have four hundred dollars of her money.
+
+"But this is very irregular, you know, Mrs. McTeague," said
+the great man.  "Not business-like at all."
+
+But his niece's misfortunes and the sight of her poor maimed
+hand appealed to him.  He opened his check-book.  "You
+understand, of course," he said, "that this will reduce the
+amount of your interest by just so much."
+
+"I know, I know.  I've thought of that," said Trina.
+
+"Four hundred, did you say?" remarked Uncle Oelbermann,
+taking the cap from his fountain pen.
+
+"Yes, four hundred," exclaimed Trina, quickly, her eyes
+glistening.
+
+Trina cashed the check and returned home with the money--all
+in twenty-dollar pieces as she had desired--in an ecstasy of
+delight.  For half of that night she sat up playing with her
+money, counting it and recounting it, polishing the duller
+pieces until they shone.  Altogether there were twenty
+twenty-dollar gold pieces.
+
+"Oh-h, you beauties!" murmured Trina, running her palms over
+them, fairly quivering with pleasure.  "You beauties!  
+IS there anything prettier than a twenty-dollar gold piece?
+You dear, dear money!  Oh, don't I LOVE you!  Mine, mine,
+mine--all of you mine."
+
+She laid them out in a row on the ledge of the table, or
+arranged them in patterns--triangles, circles, and squares--
+or built them all up into a pyramid which she afterward
+overthrew for the sake of hearing the delicious clink of the
+pieces tumbling against each other.  Then at last she put
+them away in the brass match-box and chamois bag, delighted
+beyond words that they were once more full and heavy.
+
+Then, a few days after, the thought of the money still
+remaining in Uncle Oelbermann's keeping returned to her.  It
+was hers, all hers--all that four thousand six hundred.  She
+could have as much of it or as little of it as she chose. 
+She only had to ask.  For a week Trina resisted, knowing
+very well that taking from her capital was proportionately
+reducing her monthly income.  Then at last she yielded.
+
+"Just to make it an even five hundred, anyhow," she told
+herself.  That day she drew a hundred dollars more, in
+twenty-dollar gold pieces as before.  From that time Trina
+began to draw steadily upon her capital, a little at a time. 
+It was a passion with her, a mania, a veritable mental
+disease; a temptation such as drunkards only know.
+
+It would come upon her all of a sudden.  While she was about
+her work, scrubbing the floor of some vacant house; or in
+her room, in the morning, as she made her coffee on the oil
+stove, or when she woke in the night, a brusque access
+of cupidity would seize upon her.  Her cheeks flushed, her
+eyes glistened, her breath came short.  At times she would
+leave her work just as it was, put on her old bonnet of
+black straw, throw her shawl about her, and go straight to
+Uncle Oelbermann's store and draw against her money.  Now it
+would be a hundred dollars, now sixty; now she would content
+herself with only twenty; and once, after a fortnight's
+abstinence, she permitted herself a positive debauch of five
+hundred.  Little by little she drew her capital from Uncle
+Oelbermann, and little by little her original interest of
+twenty-five dollars a month dwindled.
+
+One day she presented herself again in the office of the
+whole-sale toy store.
+
+"Will you let me have a check for two hundred dollars, Uncle
+Oelbermann?" she said.
+
+The great man laid down his fountain pen and leaned back in
+his swivel chair with great deliberation.
+
+"I don't understand, Mrs. McTeague," he said.  "Every week
+you come here and draw out a little of your money. I've told
+you that it is not at all regular or business-like for me to
+let you have it this way.  And more than this, it's a great
+inconvenience to me to give you these checks at unstated
+times. If you wish to draw out the whole amount let's have
+some understanding.  Draw it in monthly installments of,
+say, five hundred dollars, or else," he added, abruptly,
+"draw it all at once, now, to-day.  I would even prefer it
+that way.  Otherwise it's--it's annoying.  Come, shall I
+draw you a check for thirty-seven hundred, and have it over
+and done with?"
+
+"No, no," cried Trina, with instinctive apprehension,
+refusing, she did not know why.  "No, I'll leave it with
+you.  I won't draw out any more."
+
+She took her departure, but paused on the pavement outside
+the store, and stood for a moment lost in thought, her eyes
+beginning to glisten and her breath coming short.  Slowly
+she turned about and reentered the store; she came back into
+the office, and stood trembling at the corner of Uncle
+Oelbermann's desk.  He looked up sharply.  Twice Trina
+tried to get her voice, and when it did come to her, she
+could hardly recognize it.  Between breaths she said:
+
+"Yes, all right--I'll--you can give me--will you give me a
+check for thirty-seven hundred?  Give me ALL of my
+money."
+
+A few hours later she entered her little room over the
+kindergarten, bolted the door with shaking fingers, and
+emptied a heavy canvas sack upon the middle of her bed.
+Then she opened her trunk, and taking thence the brass
+match-box and chamois-skin bag added their contents to the
+pile.  Next she laid herself upon the bed and gathered the
+gleaming heaps of gold pieces to her with both arms, burying
+her face in them with long sighs of unspeakable delight.
+
+It was a little past noon, and the day was fine and warm. 
+The leaves of the huge cherry trees threw off a certain
+pungent aroma that entered through the open window, together
+with long thin shafts of golden sunlight.  Below, in the
+kindergarten, the children were singing gayly and marching
+to the jangling of the piano.  Trina heard nothing, saw
+nothing.  She lay on her bed, her eyes closed, her face
+buried in a pile of gold that she encircled with both her
+arms.
+
+Trina even told herself at last that she was happy once
+more. McTeague became a memory--a memory that faded a little
+every day--dim and indistinct in the golden splendor of five
+thousand dollars.
+
+"And yet," Trina would say, "I did love Mac, loved him
+dearly, only a little while ago.  Even when he hurt me, it
+only made me love him more.  How is it I've changed so
+sudden?  How COULD I forget him so soon? It must be
+because he stole my money. That is it.  I couldn't forgive
+anyone that--no, not even my MOTHER.  And I never--
+never--will forgive him."
+
+What had become of her husband Trina did not know.  She
+never saw any of the old Polk Street people.  There was no
+way she could have news of him, even if she had cared to
+have it.  She had her money, that was the main thing.  Her
+passion for it excluded every other sentiment.  There it was
+in the bottom of her trunk, in the canvas sack, the
+chamois-skin bag, and the little brass match-safe.  Not a
+day passed that Trina did not have it out where she could
+see and touch it.  One evening she had even spread all the
+gold pieces between the sheets, and had then gone to bed,
+stripping herself, and had slept all night upon the money,
+taking a strange and ecstatic pleasure in the touch of the
+smooth flat pieces the length of her entire body.
+
+One night, some three months after she had come to live at
+the kindergarten, Trina was awakened by a sharp tap on the
+pane of the window.  She sat up quickly in bed, her heart
+beating thickly, her eyes rolling wildly in the direction of
+her trunk. The tap was repeated. Trina rose and went
+fearfully to the window.  The little court below was bright
+with moonlight, and standing just on the edge of the shadow
+thrown by one of the cherry trees was McTeague.  A bunch of
+half-ripe cherries was in his hand.  He was eating them and
+throwing the pits at the window.  As he caught sight of her,
+he made an eager sign for her to raise the sash.  Reluctant
+and wondering, Trina obeyed, and the dentist came quickly
+forward.  He was wearing a pair of blue overalls; a navy-
+blue flannel shirt without a cravat; an old coat, faded,
+rain-washed, and ripped at the seams; and his woollen cap.
+
+"Say, Trina," he exclaimed, his heavy bass voice pitched
+just above a whisper, "let me in, will you, huh?  Say, will
+you?  I'm regularly starving, and I haven't slept in a
+Christian bed for two weeks."
+
+At sight at him standing there in the moonlight, Trina could
+only think of him as the man who had beaten and bitten her,
+had deserted her and stolen her money, had made her suffer
+as she had never suffered before in all her life.  Now that
+he had spent the money that he had stolen from her, he was
+whining to come back--so that he might steal more, no doubt. 
+Once in her room he could not help but smell out her five
+thousand dollars. Her indignation rose.
+
+"No," she whispered back at him.  "No, I will not let you
+in."
+
+"But listen here, Trina, I tell you I am starving,
+regularly----"
+
+"Hoh!" interrupted Trina scornfully.  "A man can't
+starve with four hundred dollars, I guess."
+
+"Well--well--I--well--" faltered the dentist.  "Never mind
+now. Give me something to eat, an' let me in an' sleep.
+I've been sleeping in the Plaza for the last ten nights, and
+say, I--Damn it, Trina, I ain't had anything to eat since--"
+
+"Where's the four hundred dollars you robbed me of when you
+deserted me?" returned Trina, coldly.
+
+"Well, I've spent it," growled the dentist.  "But you
+CAN'T see me starve, Trina, no matter what's happened.
+Give me a little money, then."
+
+"I'll see you starve before you get any more of MY
+money."
+
+The dentist stepped back a pace and stared up at her wonder-
+stricken.  His face was lean and pinched.  Never had the jaw
+bone looked so enormous, nor the square-cut head so huge.
+The moonlight made deep black shadows in the shrunken
+cheeks.
+
+"Huh?" asked the dentist, puzzled.  "What did you say?"
+
+"I won't give you any money--never again--not a cent."
+
+"But do you know that I'm hungry?"
+
+"Well, I've been hungry myself.  Besides, I DON'T
+believe you."
+
+"Trina, I ain't had a thing to eat since yesterday morning;
+that's God's truth.  Even if I did get off with your money,
+you CAN'T see me starve, can you?  You can't see me walk
+the streets all night because I ain't got a place to sleep. 
+Will you let me in?  Say, will you?  Huh?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, will you give me some money then--just a little? 
+Give me a dollar.  Give me half a dol--Say, give me a
+DIME, an' I can get a cup of coffee."
+
+"No."
+
+The dentist paused and looked at her with curious
+intentness, bewildered, nonplussed.
+
+"Say, you--you must be crazy, Trina.  I--I--wouldn't let a
+DOG go hungry."
+
+"Not even if he'd bitten you, perhaps."
+
+The dentist stared again.
+
+There was another pause.  McTeague looked up at her in
+silence, a mean and vicious twinkle coming into his small
+eyes.  He uttered a low exclamation, and then checked
+himself.
+
+"Well, look here, for the last time.  I'm starving. I've got
+nowhere to sleep.  Will you give me some money, or something
+to eat?  Will you let me in?"
+
+"No--no--no."
+
+Trina could fancy she almost saw the brassy glint in her
+husband's eyes.  He raised one enormous lean fist. Then he
+growled:
+
+"If I had hold of you for a minute, by God, I'd make you
+dance. An' I will yet, I will yet.  Don't you be afraid of
+that."
+
+He turned about, the moonlight showing like a layer of snow
+upon his massive shoulders.  Trina watched him as he passed
+under the shadow of the cherry trees and crossed the little
+court.  She heard his great feet grinding on the board
+flooring.  He disappeared.
+
+Miser though she was, Trina was only human, and the echo of
+the dentist's heavy feet had not died away before she began
+to he sorry for what she had done.  She stood by the open
+window in her nightgown, her finger upon her lips.
+
+"He did looked pinched," she said half aloud.  "Maybe he
+WAS hungry.  I ought to have given him something.  I wish I
+had, I WISH I had.  Oh," she cried, suddenly, with a
+frightened gesture of both hands, "what have I come to be
+that I would see Mac--my husband--that I would see him
+starve rather than give him money?  No, no.  It's too
+dreadful.  I WILL give him some.  I'll send it to him
+to-morrow.  Where?--well, he'll come back."  She leaned from
+the window and called as loudly as she dared, "Mac, oh,
+Mac."  There was no answer.
+
+When McTeague had told Trina he had been without food for
+nearly two days he was speaking the truth.  The week before
+he had spent the last of the four hundred dollars in the bar
+of a sailor's lodging-house near the water front, and since
+that time had lived a veritable hand-to-mouth existence.
+
+He had spent her money here and there about the city in
+royal fashion, absolutely reckless of the morrow, feasting
+and drinking for the most part with companions he
+picked up heaven knows where, acquaintances of twenty-four
+hours, whose names he forgot in two days.  Then suddenly he
+found himself at the end of his money.  He no longer had any
+friends.  Hunger rode him and rowelled him.  He was no
+longer well fed, comfortable. There was no longer a warm
+place for him to sleep.  He went back to Polk Street in the
+evening, walking on the dark side of the street, lurking in
+the shadows, ashamed to have any of his old-time friends see
+him.  He entered Zerkow's old house and knocked at the door
+of the room Trina and he had occupied.  It was empty.
+
+Next day he went to Uncle Oelbermann's store and asked news
+of Trina.  Trina had not told Uncle Oelbermann of McTeague's
+brutalities, giving him other reasons to explain the loss of
+her fingers; neither had she told him of her husband's
+robbery.  So when the dentist had asked where Trina could be
+found, Uncle Oelbermann, believing that McTeague was seeking
+a reconciliation, had told him without hesitation, and, he
+added:
+
+"She was in here only yesterday and drew out the balance of
+her money.  She's been drawing against her money for the
+last month or so.  She's got it all now, I guess."
+
+"Ah, she's got it all."
+
+The dentist went away from his bootless visit to his wife
+shaking with rage, hating her with all the strength of a
+crude and primitive nature.  He clenched his fists till his
+knuckles whitened, his teeth ground furiously upon one
+another.
+
+"Ah, if I had hold of you once, I'd make you dance. She had
+five thousand dollars in that room, while I stood there, not
+twenty feet away, and told her I was starving, and she
+wouldn't give me a dime to get a cup of coffee with; not a
+dime to get a cup of coffee. Oh, if I once get my hands on
+you!"  His wrath strangled him.  He clutched at the darkness
+in front of him, his breath fairly whistling between his
+teeth.
+
+That night he walked the streets until the morning,
+wondering what now he was to do to fight the wolf away.  The
+morning of the next day towards ten o'clock he was on
+Kearney Street, still walking, still tramping the streets,
+since there was nothing else for him to do.  By and by
+he paused on a corner near a music store, finding a
+momentary amusement in watching two or three men loading a
+piano upon a dray.  Already half its weight was supported by
+the dray's backboard. One of the men, a big mulatto, almost
+hidden under the mass of glistening rosewood, was guiding
+its course, while the other two heaved and tugged in the 
+rear. Something in the street frightened the horses and they
+shied abruptly.  The end of the piano was twitched sharply
+from the backboard.  There was a cry, the mulatto staggered
+and fell with the falling piano, and its weight dropped
+squarely upon his thigh, which broke with a resounding
+crack.
+
+An hour later McTeague had found his job.  The music store
+engaged him as handler at six dollars a week.  McTeague's
+enormous strength, useless all his life, stood him in good
+stead at last.
+
+He slept in a tiny back room opening from the storeroom of
+the music store.  He was in some sense a watchman as well as
+handler, and went the rounds of the store twice every night.
+His room was a box of a place that reeked with odors of
+stale tobacco smoke.  The former occupant had papered the
+walls with newspapers and had pasted up figures cut out from
+the posters of some Kiralfy ballet, very gaudy.  By the one
+window, chittering all day in its little gilt prison, hung
+the canary bird, a tiny atom of life that McTeague still
+clung to with a strange obstinacy.
+
+McTeague drank a good deal of whiskey in these days, but the
+only effect it had upon him was to increase the viciousness
+and bad temper that had developed in him since the beginning
+of his misfortunes.  He terrorized his fellow-handlers,
+powerful men though they were.  For a gruff word, for an
+awkward movement in lading the pianos, for a surly look or a
+muttered oath, the dentist's elbow would crook and his hand
+contract to a mallet-like fist.  As often as not the blow
+followed, colossal in its force, swift as the leap of the
+piston from its cylinder.
+
+His hatred of Trina increased from day to day.  He'd make
+her dance yet.  Wait only till he got his hands upon her. 
+She'd let him starve, would she?  She'd turn him out of
+doors while she hid her five thousand dollars in the bottom
+of her trunk.  Aha, he would see about that some day.
+She couldn't make small of him.  Ah, no.  She'd dance all
+right--all right. McTeague was not an imaginative man by
+nature, but he would lie awake nights, his clumsy wits
+galloping and frisking under the lash of the alcohol, and
+fancy himself thrashing his wife, till a sudden frenzy of
+rage would overcome him, and he would shake all over,
+rolling upon the bed and biting the mattress.
+
+On a certain day, about a week after Christmas of that year,
+McTeague was on one of the top floors of the music store,
+where the second-hand instruments were kept, helping to move
+about and rearrange some old pianos.  As he passed by one of
+the counters he paused abruptly, his eye caught by an object
+that was strangely familiar.
+
+"Say," he inquired, addressing the clerk in charge, "say,
+where'd this come from?"
+
+"Why, let's see.  We got that from a second-hand store up on
+Polk Street, I guess.  It's a fairly good machine; a little
+tinkering with the stops and a bit of shellac, and we'll
+make it about's good as new.  Good tone.  See."  And the
+clerk drew a long, sonorous wail from the depths of
+McTeague's old concertina.
+
+"Well, it's mine," growled the dentist.
+
+The other laughed.  "It's yours for eleven dollars."
+
+"It's mine," persisted McTeague.  "I want it."
+
+"Go 'long with you, Mac.  What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that it's mine, that's what I mean.  You got no
+right to it.  It was STOLEN from me, that's what I
+mean," he added, a sullen anger flaming up in his little
+eyes.
+
+The clerk raised a shoulder and put the concertina on an
+upper shelf.
+
+"You talk to the boss about that; t'ain't none of my affair. 
+If you want to buy it, it's eleven dollars."
+
+The dentist had been paid off the day before and had four
+dollars in his wallet at the moment.  He gave the money to
+the clerk.
+
+"Here, there's part of the money.  You--you put that
+concertina aside for me, an' I'll give you the rest in a
+week or so--I'll give it to you tomorrow," he
+exclaimed, struck with a sudden idea.
+
+McTeague had sadly missed his concertina.  Sunday afternoons
+when there was no work to be done, he was accustomed to lie
+flat on his back on his springless bed in the little room in
+the rear of the music store, his coat and shoes off, reading
+the paper, drinking steam beer from a pitcher, and smoking
+his pipe.  But he could no longer play his six lugubrious
+airs upon his concertina, and it was a deprivation.  He
+often wondered where it was gone.  It had been lost, no
+doubt, in the general wreck of his fortunes.  Once, even,
+the dentist had taken a concertina from the lot kept by the
+music store.  It was a Sunday and no one was about.  But he
+found he could not play upon it. The stops were arranged
+upon a system he did not understand.
+
+Now his own concertina was come back to him.  He would buy
+it back.  He had given the clerk four dollars.  He knew
+where he would get the remaining seven.
+
+The clerk had told him the concertina had been sold on Polk
+Street to the second-hand store there.  Trina had sold it.
+McTeague knew it.  Trina had sold his concertina--had stolen
+it and sold it--his concertina, his beloved concertina, that
+he had had all his life.  Why, barring the canary, there was
+not one of all his belongings that McTeague had cherished
+more dearly.  His steel engraving of "Lorenzo de' Medici and
+his Court" might be lost, his stone pug dog might go, but
+his concertina!
+
+"And she sold it--stole it from me and sold it.  Just
+because I happened to forget to take it along with me. Well,
+we'll just see about that.  You'll give me the money to buy
+it back, or----"
+
+His rage loomed big within him.  His hatred of Trina came
+back upon him like a returning surge.  He saw her small,
+prim mouth, her narrow blue eyes, her black mane of hair,
+and up-tilted chin, and hated her the more because of them. 
+Aha, he'd show her; he'd make her dance.  He'd get that
+seven dollars from her, or he'd know the reason why.  He
+went through his work that day, heaving and hauling at the
+ponderous pianos, handling them with the ease of a lifting
+crane, impatient for the coming of evening, when he could be
+left to his own devices.  As often as he had a moment
+to spare he went down the street to the nearest saloon and
+drank a pony of whiskey.  Now and then as he fought and
+struggled with the vast masses of ebony, rosewood, and
+mahogany on the upper floor of the music store, raging and
+chafing at their inertness and unwillingness, while the
+whiskey pirouetted in his brain, he would mutter to himself:
+
+"An' I got to do this.  I got to work like a dray horse
+while she sits at home by her stove and counts her money--
+and sells my concertina."
+
+Six o'clock came.  Instead of supper, McTeague drank some
+more whiskey, five ponies in rapid succession.  After supper
+he was obliged to go out with the dray to deliver a concert
+grand at the Odd Fellows' Hall, where a piano "recital" was
+to take place.
+
+"Ain't you coming back with us?" asked one of the handlers
+as he climbed upon the driver's seat after the piano had
+been put in place.
+
+"No, no," returned the dentist; "I got something else to
+do."  The brilliant lights of a saloon near the City Hall
+caught his eye.  He decided he would have another drink of
+whiskey.  It was about eight o'clock.
+
+The following day was to be a fete day at the
+kindergarten, the Christmas and New Year festivals combined. 
+All that afternoon the little two-story building on Pacific
+Street had been filled with a number of grand ladies of the
+Kindergarten Board, who were hanging up ropes of evergreen
+and sprays of holly, and arranging a great Christmas tree
+that stood in the centre of the ring in the schoolroom.  The
+whole place was pervaded with a pungent, piney odor.  Trina
+had been very busy since the early morning, coming and going
+at everybody's call, now running down the street after
+another tack-hammer or a fresh supply of cranberries, now
+tying together the ropes of evergreen and passing them up to
+one of the grand ladies as she carefully balanced herself on
+a step-ladder.  By evening everything was in place.  As the
+last grand lady left the school, she gave Trina an extra
+dollar for her work, and said:
+
+"Now, if you'll just tidy up here, Mrs. McTeague, I think
+that will be all.  Sweep up the pine needles here--you
+see they are all over the floor--and look through all the
+rooms, and tidy up generally.  Good night--and a Happy New
+Year," she cried pleasantly as she went out.
+
+Trina put the dollar away in her trunk before she did
+anything else and cooked herself a bit of supper. Then she
+came downstairs again.
+
+The kindergarten was not large.  On the lower floor were but
+two rooms, the main schoolroom and another room, a
+cloakroom, very small, where the children hung their hats
+and coats.  This cloakroom opened off the back of the main
+schoolroom.  Trina cast a critical glance into both of these
+rooms.  There had been a great deal of going and coming in
+them during the day, and she decided that the first thing to
+do would be to scrub the floors. She went up again to her
+room overhead and heated some water over her oil stove;
+then, re-descending, set to work vigorously.
+
+By nine o'clock she had almost finished with the schoolroom.
+She was down on her hands and knees in the midst of a
+steaming muck of soapy water.  On her feet were a pair of
+man's shoes fastened with buckles; a dirty cotton gown, damp
+with the water, clung about her shapeless, stunted figure. 
+From time to time she sat back on her heels to ease the
+strain of her position, and with one smoking hand, white and
+parboiled with the hot water, brushed her hair, already
+streaked with gray, out of her weazened, pale face and the
+corners of her mouth.
+
+It was very quiet.  A gas-jet without a globe lit up the
+place with a crude, raw light.  The cat who lived on the
+premises, preferring to be dirty rather than to be wet, had
+got into the coal scuttle, and over its rim watched her
+sleepily with a long, complacent purr.
+
+All at once he stopped purring, leaving an abrupt silence in
+the air like the sudden shutting off of a stream of water,
+while his eyes grew wide, two lambent disks of yellow in the
+heap of black fur.
+
+"Who is there?" cried Trina, sitting back on her heels. In
+the stillness that succeeded, the water dripped from her
+hands with the steady tick of a clock.  Then a brutal
+fist swung open the street door of the schoolroom and
+McTeague came in.  He was drunk; not with that drunkenness
+which is stupid, maudlin, wavering on its feet, but with
+that which is alert, unnaturally intelligent, vicious,
+perfectly steady, deadly wicked.  Trina only had to look
+once at him, and in an instant, with some strange sixth
+sense, born of the occasion, knew what she had to expect.
+
+She jumped up and ran from him into the little cloakroom. 
+She locked and bolted the door after her, and leaned her
+weight against it, panting and trembling, every nerve
+shrinking and quivering with the fear of him.
+
+McTeague put his hand on the knob of the door outside and
+opened it, tearing off the lock and bolt guard, and sending
+her staggering across the room.
+
+"Mac," she cried to him, as he came in, speaking with horrid
+rapidity, cringing and holding out her hands, "Mac, listen.
+Wait a minute--look here--listen here. It wasn't my fault. 
+I'll give you some money.  You can come back.  I'll do
+ANYTHING you want.  Won't you just LISTEN to me?  Oh,
+don't!  I'll scream.  I can't help it, you know.  The people
+will hear."
+
+McTeague came towards her slowly, his immense feet dragging
+and grinding on the floor; his enormous fists, hard as
+wooden mallets, swinging at his sides. Trina backed from him
+to the corner of the room, cowering before him, holding her
+elbow crooked in front of her face, watching him with
+fearful intentness, ready to dodge.
+
+"I want that money," he said, pausing in front of her.
+
+"What money?" cried Trina.
+
+"I want that money.  You got it--that five thousand dollars. 
+I want every nickel of it!  You understand?"
+
+"I haven't it.  It isn't here.  Uncle Oelbermann's got it."
+
+"That's a lie.  He told me that you came and got it. You've
+had it long enough; now I want it.  Do you hear?"
+
+"Mac, I can't give you that money.  I--I WON'T give it
+to you," Trina cried, with sudden resolution.
+
+"Yes, you will.  You'll give me every nickel of it."
+
+"No, NO."
+
+"You ain't going to make small of me this time.  Give me
+that money."
+
+"NO."
+
+"For the last time, will you give me that money?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You won't, huh?  You won't give me it?  For the last time."
+
+"No, NO."
+
+Usually the dentist was slow in his movements, but now the
+alcohol had awakened in him an ape-like agility.  He kept
+his small eyes upon her, and all at once sent his fist into
+the middle of her face with the suddenness of a relaxed
+spring.
+
+Beside herself with terror, Trina turned and fought him
+back; fought for her miserable life with the exasperation
+and strength of a harassed cat; and with such energy and
+such wild, unnatural force, that even McTeague for the
+moment drew back from her. But her resistance was the one
+thing to drive him to the top of his fury.  He came back at
+her again, his eyes drawn to two fine twinkling points, and
+his enormous fists, clenched till the knuckles whitened,
+raised in the air.
+
+Then it became abominable.
+
+In the schoolroom outside, behind the coal scuttle, the cat
+listened to the sounds of stamping and struggling and the
+muffled noise of blows, wildly terrified, his eyes bulging
+like brass knobs.  At last the sounds stopped on a sudden;
+he heard nothing more.  Then McTeague came out, closing the
+door.  The cat followed him with distended eyes as he
+crossed the room and disappeared through the street door.
+
+The dentist paused for a moment on the sidewalk, looking
+carefully up and down the street.  It was deserted and
+quiet. He turned sharply to the right and went down a narrow
+passage that led into the little court yard behind the
+school.  A candle was burning in Trina's room.  He went up
+by the outside stairway and entered.
+
+The trunk stood locked in one corner of the room.  The
+dentist took the lid-lifter from the little oil stove, put
+it underneath the lock-clasp and wrenched it open.
+Groping beneath a pile of dresses he found the chamois-skin
+bag, the little brass match-box, and, at the very bottom,
+carefully thrust into one corner, the canvas sack crammed to
+the mouth with twenty-dollar gold pieces.  He emptied the
+chamois-skin bag and the matchbox into the pockets of his
+trousers.  But the canvas sack was too bulky to hide about
+his clothes.  "I guess I'll just naturally have to carry
+YOU," he muttered.  He blew out the candle, closed the
+door, and gained the street again.
+
+The dentist crossed the city, going back to the music store. 
+It was a little after eleven o'clock.  The night was
+moonless, filled with a gray blur of faint light that seemed
+to come from all quarters of the horizon at once.  From time
+to time there were sudden explosions of a southeast wind at
+the street corners. McTeague went on, slanting his head
+against the gusts, to keep his cap from blowing off,
+carrying the sack close to his side.  Once he looked
+critically at the sky.
+
+"I bet it'll rain to-morrow," he muttered, "if this wind
+works round to the south."
+
+Once in his little den behind the music store, he washed his
+hands and forearms, and put on his working clothes, blue
+overalls and a jumper, over cheap trousers and vest.  Then
+he got together his small belongings--an old campaign hat, a
+pair of boots, a tin of tobacco, and a pinchbeck bracelet
+which he had found one Sunday in the Park, and which he
+believed to be valuable.  He stripped his blanket from his
+bed and rolled up in it all these objects, together with the
+canvas sack, fastening the roll with a half hitch such as
+miners use, the instincts of the old-time car-boy coming
+back to him in his present confusion of mind. He changed his
+pipe and his knife--a huge jackknife with a yellowed bone
+handle--to the pockets of his overalls.
+
+Then at last he stood with his hand on the door, holding up
+the lamp before blowing it out, looking about to make sure
+he was ready to go.  The wavering light woke his canary.  It
+stirred and began to chitter feebly, very sleepy and cross
+at being awakened. McTeague started, staring at it, and
+reflecting.  He believed that it would be a long time before
+anyone came into that room again.  The canary would be days
+without food; it was likely it would starve, would die
+there, hour by hour, in its little gilt prison.  McTeague
+resolved to take it with him.  He took down the cage,
+touching it gently with his enormous hands, and tied a
+couple of sacks about it to shelter the little bird from the
+sharp night wind.
+
+Then he went out, locking all the doors behind him, and
+turned toward the ferry slips.  The boats had ceased running
+hours ago, but he told himself that by waiting till four
+o'clock he could get across the bay on the tug that took
+over the morning papers.
+
+*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+
+Trina lay unconscious, just as she had fallen under the last
+of McTeague's blows, her body twitching with an occasional
+hiccough that stirred the pool of blood in which she lay
+face downward. Towards morning she died with a rapid series
+of hiccoughs that sounded like a piece of clockwork running
+down.
+
+The thing had been done in the cloakroom where the
+kindergarten children hung their hats and coats. There was
+no other entrance except by going through the main
+schoolroom.  McTeague going out had shut the door of the
+cloakroom, but had left the street door open; so when the
+children arrived in the morning, they entered as usual.
+
+About half-past eight, two or three five-year-olds, one a
+little colored girl, came into the schoolroom of the
+kindergarten with a great chatter of voices, going across to
+the cloakroom to hang up their hats and coats as they had
+been taught.
+
+Half way across the room one of them stopped and put her
+small nose in the air, crying, "Um-o-o, what a funnee
+smell!"  The others began to sniff the air as well, and one,
+the daughter of a butcher, exclaimed, "'Tsmells like my pa's
+shop," adding in the next breath, "Look, what's the matter
+with the kittee?"
+
+In fact, the cat was acting strangely.  He lay quite flat on
+the floor, his nose pressed close to the crevice under the
+door of the little cloakroom, winding his tail slowly
+back and forth, excited, very eager. At times he would draw
+back and make a strange little clacking noise down in his
+throat.
+
+"Ain't he funnee?" said the little girl again.  The cat
+slunk swiftly away as the children came up.  Then the
+tallest of the little girls swung the door of the little
+cloakroom wide open and they all ran in.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+
+The day was very hot, and the silence of high noon lay close
+and thick between the steep slopes of the canyons like an
+invisible, muffling fluid.  At intervals the drone of an
+insect bored the air and trailed slowly to silence again. 
+Everywhere were pungent, aromatic smells.  The vast,
+moveless heat seemed to distil countless odors from the
+brush--odors of warm sap, of pine needles, and of tar-weed,
+and above all the medicinal odor of witch hazel.  As far as
+one could look, uncounted multitudes of trees and manzanita
+bushes were quietly and motionlessly growing, growing,
+growing.  A tremendous, immeasurable Life pushed steadily
+heavenward without a sound, without a motion. At turns of
+the road, on the higher points, canyons disclosed themselves
+far away, gigantic grooves in the landscape, deep blue in
+the distance, opening one into another, ocean-deep, silent,
+huge, and suggestive of colossal primeval forces held in
+reserve.  At their bottoms they were solid, massive; on
+their crests they broke delicately into fine serrated edges
+where the pines and redwoods outlined their million of tops
+against the high white horizon.  Here and there the
+mountains lifted themselves out of the narrow river
+beds in groups like giant lions rearing their heads after
+drinking.  The entire region was untamed.  In some places
+east of the Mississippi nature is cosey, intimate, small,
+and homelike, like a good-natured housewife.  In Placer
+County, California, she is a vast, unconquered brute of the
+Pliocene epoch, savage, sullen, and magnificently
+indifferent to man.
+
+But there were men in these mountains, like lice on
+mammoths' hides, fighting them stubbornly, now with
+hydraulic "monitors," now with drill and dynamite, boring
+into the vitals of them, or tearing away great yellow
+gravelly scars in the flanks of them, sucking their blood,
+extracting gold.
+
+Here and there at long distances upon the canyon sides rose
+the headgear of a mine, surrounded with its few unpainted
+houses, and topped by its never-failing feather of black
+smoke.  On near approach one heard the prolonged thunder of
+the stamp-mill, the crusher, the insatiable monster,
+gnashing the rocks to powder with its long iron teeth,
+vomiting them out again in a thin stream of wet gray mud. 
+Its enormous maw, fed night and day with the car-boys'
+loads, gorged itself with gravel, and spat out the gold,
+grinding the rocks between its jaws, glutted, as it were,
+with the very entrails of the earth, and growling over its
+endless meal, like some savage animal, some legendary
+dragon, some fabulous beast, symbol of inordinate and
+monstrous gluttony.
+
+McTeague had left the Overland train at Colfax, and the same
+afternoon had ridden some eight miles across the mountains
+in the stage that connects Colfax with Iowa Hill.  Iowa Hill
+was a small one-street town, the headquarters of the mines
+of the district.  Originally it had been built upon the
+summit of a mountain, but the sides of this mountain have
+long since been "hydrau-licked" away, so that the town now
+clings to a mere back bone, and the rear windows of the
+houses on both sides of the street look down over sheer
+precipices, into vast pits hundreds of feet deep.
+
+The dentist stayed over night at the Hill, and the next
+morning started off on foot farther into the mountains.  He
+still wore his blue overalls and jumper; his woollen
+cap was pulled down over his eye; on his feet were hob-
+nailed boots he had bought at the store in Colfax; his
+blanket roll was over his back; in his left hand swung the
+bird cage wrapped in sacks.
+
+Just outside the town he paused, as if suddenly remembering
+something.
+
+"There ought to be a trail just off the road here," he
+muttered.  "There used to be a trail--a short cut."
+
+The next instant, without moving from his position, he saw
+where it opened just before him.  His instinct had halted
+him at the exact spot.  The trail zigzagged down the abrupt
+descent of the canyon, debouching into a gravelly river bed.
+
+"Indian River," muttered the dentist.  "I remember--I
+remember. I ought to hear the Morning Star's stamps from
+here."  He cocked his head.  A low, sustained roar, like a
+distant cataract, came to his ears from across the river. 
+"That's right," he said, contentedly.  He crossed the river
+and regained the road beyond.  The slope rose under his
+feet; a little farther on he passed the Morning Star mine,
+smoking and thundering.  McTeague pushed steadily on.  The
+road rose with the rise of the mountain, turned at a sharp
+angle where a great live-oak grew, and held level for nearly
+a quarter of a mile.  Twice again the dentist left the road
+and took to the trail that cut through deserted hydraulic
+pits.  He knew exactly where to look for these trails; not
+once did his instinct deceive him.  He recognized familiar
+points at once.  Here was Cold Canyon, where invariably,
+winter and summer, a chilly wind was blowing; here was where
+the road to Spencer's branched off; here was Bussy's old
+place, where at one time there were so many dogs; here was
+Delmue's cabin, where unlicensed whiskey used to be sold;
+here was the plank bridge with its one rotten board; and
+here the flat overgrown with manzanita, where he once had
+shot three quail.
+
+At noon, after he had been tramping for some two hours, he
+halted at a point where the road dipped suddenly.  A little
+to the right of him, and flanking the road, an enormous
+yellow gravel-pit like an emptied lake gaped to heaven. 
+Farther on, in the distance, a canyon zigzagged toward
+the horizon, rugged with pine-clad mountain crests.  Nearer
+at hand, and directly in the line of the road, was an
+irregular cluster of unpainted cabins. A dull, prolonged
+roar vibrated in the air.  McTeague nodded his head as if
+satisfied.
+
+"That's the place," he muttered.
+
+He reshouldered his blanket roll and descended the road.  At
+last he halted again.  He stood before a low one-story
+building, differing from the others in that it was painted. 
+A verandah, shut in with mosquito netting, surrounded it. 
+McTeague dropped his blanket roll on a lumber pile outside,
+and came up and knocked at the open door.  Some one called
+to him to come in.
+
+McTeague entered, rolling his eyes about him, noting the
+changes that had been made since he had last seen this
+place.  A partition had been knocked down, making one big
+room out of the two former small ones.  A counter and
+railing stood inside the door.  There was a telephone on the
+wall.  In one corner he also observed a stack of surveyor's
+instruments; a big drawing-board straddled on spindle legs
+across one end of the room, a mechanical drawing of some
+kind, no doubt the plan of the mine, unrolled upon it; a
+chromo representing a couple of peasants in a ploughed field
+(Millet's "Angelus") was nailed unframed upon the wall, and
+hanging from the same wire nail that secured one of its
+corners in place was a bullion bag and a cartridge belt with
+a loaded revolver in the pouch.
+
+The dentist approached the counter and leaned his elbows
+upon it.  Three men were in the room--a tall, lean young
+man, with a thick head of hair surprisingly gray, who was
+playing with a half-grown great Dane puppy; another fellow
+about as young, but with a jaw almost as salient as
+McTeague's, stood at the letter-press taking a copy of a
+letter; a third man, a little older than the other two, was
+pottering over a transit.  This latter was massively built,
+and wore overalls and low boots streaked and stained and
+spotted in every direction with gray mud.  The dentist
+looked slowly from one to the other; then at length, "Is the
+foreman about?" he asked.
+
+The man in the muddy overalls came forward.
+
+"What you want?"
+
+He spoke with a strong German accent.
+
+The old invariable formula came back to McTeague on the
+instant.
+
+"What's the show for a job?"
+
+At once the German foreman became preoccupied, looking
+aimlessly out of the window.  There was a silence.
+
+"You hev been miner alretty?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"Know how to hendle pick'n shov'le?"
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+The other seemed unsatisfied.  "Are you a 'cousin Jack'?"
+
+The dentist grinned.  This prejudice against Cornishmen he
+remembered too.
+
+"No.  American."
+
+"How long sence you mine?"
+
+"Oh, year or two."
+
+"Show your hends."  McTeague exhibited his hard, callused
+palms.
+
+"When ken you go to work?  I want a chuck-tender on der
+night-shift."
+
+"I can tend a chuck.  I'll go on to-night."
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The dentist started.  He had forgotten to be prepared for
+this.
+
+"Huh?  What?"
+
+"What's the name?"
+
+McTeague's eye was caught by a railroad calendar hanging
+over the desk.  There was no time to think.
+
+"Burlington," he said, loudly.
+
+The German took a card from a file and wrote it down.
+
+"Give dis card to der boarding-boss, down at der boarding-
+haus, den gome find me bei der mill at sex o'clock, und I
+set you to work."
+
+Straight as a homing pigeon, and following a blind and
+unreasoned instinct, McTeague had returned to the Big Dipper
+mine.  Within a week's time it seemed to him as though
+he had never been away.  He picked up his life again exactly
+where he had left it the day when his mother had sent him
+away with the travelling dentist, the charlatan who had set
+up his tent by the bunk house.  The house McTeague had once
+lived in was still there, occupied by one of the shift
+bosses and his family.  The dentist passed it on his way to
+and from the mine.
+
+He himself slept in the bunk house with some thirty others
+of his shift.  At half-past five in the evening the cook at
+the boarding-house sounded a prolonged alarm upon a crowbar
+bent in the form of a triangle, that hung upon the porch of
+the boarding-house. McTeague rose and dressed, and with his
+shift had supper.  Their lunch-pails were distributed to
+them.  Then he made his way to the tunnel mouth, climbed
+into a car in the waiting ore train, and was hauled into the
+mine.
+
+Once inside, the hot evening air turned to a cool dampness,
+and the forest odors gave place to the smell of stale
+dynamite smoke, suggestive of burning rubber.  A cloud of
+steam came from McTeague's mouth; underneath, the water
+swashed and rippled around the car-wheels, while the light
+from the miner's candlesticks threw wavering blurs of pale
+yellow over the gray rotting quartz of the roof and walls. 
+Occasionally McTeague bent down his head to avoid the
+lagging of the roof or the projections of an overhanging
+shute.  From car to car all along the line the miners called
+to one another as the train trundled along, joshing and
+laughing.
+
+A mile from the entrance the train reached the breast where
+McTeague's gang worked.  The men clambered from the cars and
+took up the labor where the day shift had left it, burrowing
+their way steadily through a primeval river bed.
+
+The candlesticks thrust into the crevices of the gravel
+strata lit up faintly the half dozen moving figures befouled
+with sweat and with wet gray mould.  The picks struck into
+the loose gravel with a yielding shock. The long-handled
+shovels clinked amidst the piles of bowlders and scraped
+dully in the heaps of rotten quartz.  The Burly drill boring
+for blasts broke out from time to time in an irregular
+chug-chug, chug-chug, while the engine that pumped the water
+from the mine coughed and strangled at short intervals.
+
+McTeague tended the chuck.  In a way he was the assistant of
+the man who worked the Burly.  It was his duty to replace
+the drills in the Burly, putting in longer ones as the hole
+got deeper and deeper.  From time to time he rapped the
+drill with a pole-pick when it stuck fast or fitchered.
+
+Once it even occurred to him that there was a resemblance
+between his present work and the profession he had been
+forced to abandon.  In the Burly drill he saw a queer
+counterpart of his old-time dental engine; and what were the
+drills and chucks but enormous hoe excavators, hard bits,
+and burrs?  It was the same work he had so often performed
+in his "Parlors," only magnified, made monstrous, distorted,
+and grotesqued, the caricature of dentistry.
+
+He passed his nights thus in the midst of the play of crude
+and simple forces--the powerful attacks of the Burly drills;
+the great exertions of bared, bent backs overlaid with
+muscle; the brusque, resistless expansion of dynamite; and
+the silent, vast, Titanic force, mysterious and slow, that
+cracked the timbers supporting the roof of the tunnel, and
+that gradually flattened the lagging till it was thin as
+paper.
+
+The life pleased the dentist beyond words.  The still,
+colossal mountains took him back again like a returning
+prodigal, and vaguely, without knowing why, he yielded to
+their influence--their immensity, their enormous power,
+crude and blind, reflecting themselves in his own nature,
+huge, strong, brutal in its simplicity.  And this, though he
+only saw the mountains at night. They appeared far different
+then than in the daytime.  At twelve o'clock he came out of
+the mine and lunched on the contents of his dinner-pail,
+sitting upon the embankment of the track, eating with both
+hands, and looking around him with a steady ox-like gaze. 
+The mountains rose sheer from every side, heaving their
+gigantic crests far up into the night, the black peaks
+crowding together, and looking now less like beasts than
+like a company of cowled giants.  In the daytime they
+were silent; but at night they seemed to stir and rouse
+themselves. Occasionally the stamp-mill stopped, its thunder
+ceasing abruptly.  Then one could hear the noises that the
+mountains made in their living.  From the canyon, from the
+crowding crests, from the whole immense landscape, there
+rose a steady and prolonged sound, coming from all sides at
+once.  It was that incessant and muffled roar which
+disengages itself from all vast bodies, from oceans, from
+cities, from forests, from sleeping armies, and which is
+like the breathing of an infinitely great monster, alive,
+palpitating.
+
+McTeague returned to his work.  At six in the morning his
+shift was taken off, and he went out of the mine and back to
+the bunk house.  All day long he slept, flung at length upon
+the strong-smelling blankets--slept the dreamless sleep of
+exhaustion, crushed and overpowered with the work, flat and
+prone upon his belly, till again in the evening the cook
+sounded the alarm upon the crowbar bent into a triangle.
+
+Every alternate week the shifts were changed.  The second
+week McTeague's shift worked in the daytime and slept at
+night. Wednesday night of this second week the dentist woke
+suddenly. He sat up in his bed in the bunk house, looking
+about him from side to side; an alarm clock hanging on the
+wall, over a lantern, marked half-past three.
+
+"What was it?" muttered the dentist.  "I wonder what it
+was."  The rest of the shift were sleeping soundly, filling
+the room with the rasping sound of snoring.  Everything was
+in its accustomed place; nothing stirred.  But for all that
+McTeague got up and lit his miner's candlestick and went
+carefully about the room, throwing the light into the dark
+corners, peering under all the beds, including his own. 
+Then he went to the door and stepped outside.  The night was
+warm and still; the moon, very low, and canted on her side
+like a galleon foundering.  The camp was very quiet; nobody
+was in sight.  "I wonder what it was," muttered the dentist. 
+"There was something--why did I wake up?  Huh?"  He made a
+circuit about the bunk house, unusually alert, his small
+eyes twinkling rapidly, seeing everything.  All was
+quiet.  An old dog who invariably slept on the steps of the
+bunk house had not even wakened.  McTeague went back to bed,
+but did not sleep.
+
+"There was SOMETHING," he muttered, looking in a puzzled
+way at his canary in the cage that hung from the wall at his
+bedside; "something.  What was it?  There is something
+NOW. There it is again--the same thing."  He sat up in bed
+with eyes and ears strained.  "What is it?  I don' know what
+it is.  I don' hear anything, an' I don' see anything.  I
+feel something--right now; feel it now.  I wonder--I don'
+know--I don' know."
+
+Once more he got up, and this time dressed himself. He made
+a complete tour of the camp, looking and listening, for what
+he did not know.  He even went to the outskirts of the camp
+and for nearly half an hour watched the road that led into
+the camp from the direction of Iowa Hill.  He saw nothing;
+not even a rabbit stirred.  He went to bed.
+
+But from this time on there was a change.  The dentist grew
+restless, uneasy.  Suspicion of something, he could not say
+what, annoyed him incessantly.  He went wide around sharp
+corners.  At every moment he looked sharply over his
+shoulder. He even went to bed with his clothes and cap on,
+and at every hour during the night would get up and prowl
+about the bunk house, one ear turned down the wind, his eyes
+gimleting the darkness.  From time to time he would murmur:
+
+"There's something.  What is it?  I wonder what it is."
+
+What strange sixth sense stirred in McTeague at this time?
+What animal cunning, what brute instinct clamored for
+recognition and obedience?  What lower faculty was it that
+roused his suspicion, that drove him out into the night a
+score of times between dark and dawn, his head in the air,
+his eyes and ears keenly alert?
+
+One night as he stood on the steps of the bunk house,
+peering into the shadows of the camp, he uttered an
+exclamation as of a man suddenly enlightened.  He turned
+back into the house, drew from under his bed the blanket
+roll in which he kept his money hid, and took the
+canary down from the wall.  He strode to the door and
+disappeared into the night.  When the sheriff of Placer
+County and the two deputies from San Francisco reached the
+Big Dipper mine, McTeague had been gone two days.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+
+"Well," said one of the deputies, as he backed the horse
+into the shafts of the buggy in which the pursuers had
+driven over from the Hill, "we've about as good as got him. 
+It isn't hard to follow a man who carries a bird cage with
+him wherever he goes."
+
+McTeague crossed the mountains on foot the Friday and
+Saturday of that week, going over through Emigrant Gap,
+following the line of the Overland railroad.  He reached
+Reno Monday night. By degrees a vague plan of action
+outlined itself in the dentist's mind.
+
+"Mexico," he muttered to himself.  "Mexico, that's the
+place. They'll watch the coast and they'll watch the Eastern
+trains, but they won't think of Mexico."
+
+The sense of pursuit which had harassed him during the last
+week of his stay at the Big Dipper mine had worn off, and he
+believed himself to be very cunning.
+
+"I'm pretty far ahead now, I guess," he said.  At Reno he
+boarded a south-bound freight on the line of the Carson and
+Colorado railroad, paying for a passage in the caboose.
+"Freights don' run on schedule time," he muttered, "and a
+conductor on a passenger train makes it his business to
+study faces.  I'll stay with this train as far as it goes."
+
+The freight worked slowly southward, through western
+Nevada, the country becoming hourly more and more desolate
+and abandoned. After leaving Walker Lake the sage-brush
+country began, and the freight rolled heavily over tracks
+that threw off visible layers of heat.  At times it stopped
+whole half days on sidings or by water tanks, and the
+engineer and fireman came back to the caboose and played
+poker with the conductor and train crew.  The dentist sat
+apart, behind the stove, smoking pipe after pipe of cheap
+tobacco.  Sometimes he joined in the poker games.  He had
+learned poker when a boy at the mine, and after a few deals
+his knowledge returned to him; but for the most part he was
+taciturn and unsociable, and rarely spoke to the others
+unless spoken to first.  The crew recognized the type, and
+the impression gained ground among them that he had "done
+for" a livery-stable keeper at Truckee and was trying to get
+down into Arizona.
+
+McTeague heard two brakemen discussing him one night as they
+stood outside by the halted train.  "The livery-stable
+keeper called him a bastard; that's what Picachos told me,"
+one of them remarked, "and started to draw his gun; an' this
+fellar did for him with a hayfork.  He's a horse doctor,
+this chap is, and the livery-stable keeper had got the law
+on him so's he couldn't practise any more, an' he was sore
+about it."
+
+Near a place called Queen's the train reentered California,
+and McTeague observed with relief that the line of track
+which had hitherto held westward curved sharply to the south
+again.  The train was unmolested; occasionally the crew
+fought with a gang of tramps who attempted to ride the brake
+beams, and once in the northern part of Inyo County, while
+they were halted at a water tank, an immense Indian buck,
+blanketed to the ground, approached McTeague as he stood on
+the roadbed stretching his legs, and without a word
+presented to him a filthy, crumpled letter.  The letter was
+to the effect that the buck Big Jim was a good Indian and
+deserving of charity; the signature was illegible.  The
+dentist stared at the letter, returned it to the buck, and
+regained the train just as it started.  Neither had spoken;
+the buck did not move from his position, and fully five
+minutes afterward, when the slow-moving freight was
+miles away, the dentist looked back and saw him still
+standing motionless between the rails, a forlorn and
+solitary point of red, lost in the immensity of the
+surrounding white blur of the desert.
+
+At length the mountains began again, rising up on either
+side of the track; vast, naked hills of white sand and red
+rock, spotted with blue shadows.  Here and there a patch of
+green was spread like a gay table-cloth over the sand.  All
+at once Mount Whitney leaped over the horizon.  Independence
+was reached and passed; the freight, nearly emptied by now,
+and much shortened, rolled along the shores of Owen Lake. 
+At a place called Keeler it stopped definitely.  It was the
+terminus of the road.
+
+The town of Keeler was a one-street town, not unlike Iowa
+Hill--the post-office, the bar and hotel, the Odd Fellows'
+Hall, and the livery stable being the principal buildings.
+
+"Where to now?" muttered McTeague to himself as he sat on
+the edge of the bed in his room in the hotel.  He hung the
+canary in the window, filled its little bathtub, and watched
+it take its bath with enormous satisfaction.  "Where to
+now?" he muttered again. "This is as far as the railroad
+goes, an' it won' do for me to stay in a town yet a while;
+no, it won' do.  I got to clear out.  Where to?  That's the
+word, where to?  I'll go down to supper now"--He went on
+whispering his thoughts aloud, so that they would take more
+concrete shape in his mind--"I'll go down to supper now, an'
+then I'll hang aroun' the bar this evening till I get the
+lay of this land.  Maybe this is fruit country, though it
+looks more like a cattle country.  Maybe it's a mining
+country.  If it's a mining country," he continued, puckering
+his heavy eyebrows, "if it's a mining country, an' the mines
+are far enough off the roads, maybe I'd better get to the
+mines an' lay quiet for a month before I try to get any
+farther south."
+
+He washed the cinders and dust of a week's railroading from
+his face and hair, put on a fresh pair of boots, and went
+down to supper.  The dining-room was of the invariable type
+of the smaller interior towns of California.  There was but
+one table, covered with oilcloth; rows of benches
+answered for chairs; a railroad map, a chromo with a gilt
+frame protected by mosquito netting, hung on the walls,
+together with a yellowed photograph of the proprietor in
+Masonic regalia.  Two waitresses whom the guests--all men--
+called by their first names, came and went with large trays.
+
+Through the windows outside McTeague observed a great number
+of saddle horses tied to trees and fences.  Each one of
+these horses had a riata on the pommel of the saddle.  He
+sat down to the table, eating his thick hot soup, watching
+his neighbors covertly, listening to everything that was
+said.  It did not take him long to gather that the country
+to the east and south of Keeler was a cattle country.
+
+Not far off, across a range of hills, was the Panamint
+Valley, where the big cattle ranges were.  Every now and
+then this name was tossed to and fro across the table in the
+flow of conversation--"Over in the Panamint."  "Just going
+down for a rodeo in the Panamint."  "Panamint brands."  "Has
+a range down in the Panamint."  Then by and by the remark,
+"Hoh, yes, Gold Gulch, they're down to good pay there. 
+That's on the other side of the Panamint Range.  Peters came
+in yesterday and told me."
+
+McTeague turned to the speaker.
+
+"Is that a gravel mine?" he asked.
+
+"No, no, quartz."
+
+"I'm a miner; that's why I asked."
+
+"Well I've mined some too.  I had a hole in the ground
+meself, but she was silver; and when the skunks at
+Washington lowered the price of silver, where was I? 
+Fitchered, b'God!"
+
+"I was looking for a job."
+
+"Well, it's mostly cattle down here in the Panamint, but
+since the strike over at Gold Gulch some of the boys have
+gone prospecting.  There's gold in them damn Panamint
+Mountains.  If you can find a good long 'contact' of country
+rocks you ain't far from it.  There's a couple of fellars
+from Redlands has located four claims around Gold Gulch. 
+They got a vein eighteen inches wide, an' Peters says
+you can trace it for more'n a thousand feet.  Were you
+thinking of prospecting over there?"
+
+"Well, well, I don' know, I don' know."
+
+"Well, I'm going over to the other side of the range day
+after t'morrow after some ponies of mine, an' I'm going to
+have a look around.  You say you've been a miner?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"If you're going over that way, you might come along and see
+if we can't find a contact, or copper sulphurets, or
+something. Even if we don't find color we may find silver-
+bearing galena."  Then, after a pause, "Let's see, I didn't
+catch your name."
+
+"Huh?  My name's Carter," answered McTeague, promptly.  Why
+he should change his name again the dentist could not say.
+"Carter" came to his mind at once, and he answered without
+reflecting that he had registered as "Burlington" when he
+had arrived at the hotel.
+
+"Well, my name's Cribbens," answered the other.  The two
+shook hands solemnly.
+
+"You're about finished?" continued Cribbens, pushing back.
+"Le's go out in the bar an' have a drink on it."
+
+"Sure, sure," said the dentist.
+
+The two sat up late that night in a corner of the barroom
+discussing the probability of finding gold in the Panamint
+hills.  It soon became evident that they held differing
+theories.  McTeague clung to the old prospector's idea that
+there was no way of telling where gold was until you
+actually saw it.  Cribbens had evidently read a good many
+books upon the subject, and had already prospected in
+something of a scientific manner.
+
+"Shucks!" he exclaimed.  "Gi' me a long distinct contact
+between sedimentary and igneous rocks, an' I'll sink a shaft
+without ever SEEING 'color.'"
+
+The dentist put his huge chin in the air.  "Gold is where
+you find it," he returned, doggedly.
+
+"Well, it's my idea as how pardners ought to work along
+different lines," said Cribbens.  He tucked the corners of
+his mustache into his mouth and sucked the tobacco juice
+from them. For a moment he was thoughtful, then he blew
+out his mustache abruptly, and exclaimed:
+
+"Say, Carter, le's make a go of this.  You got a little cash
+I suppose--fifty dollars or so?"
+
+"Huh ? Yes--I--I--"
+
+"Well, I got about fifty.  We'll go pardners on the
+proposition, an' we'll dally 'round the range yonder an' see
+what we can see. What do you say?"
+
+"Sure, sure," answered the dentist.
+
+"Well, it's a go then, hey?"
+
+"That's the word."
+
+"Well, le's have a drink on it."
+
+They drank with profound gravity.
+
+They fitted out the next day at the general merchandise
+store of Keeler--picks, shovels, prospectors' hammers, a
+couple of cradles, pans, bacon, flour, coffee, and the like,
+and they bought a burro on which to pack their kit.
+
+"Say, by jingo, you ain't got a horse," suddenly exclaimed
+Cribbens as they came out of the store.  "You can't get
+around this country without a pony of some kind."
+
+Cribbens already owned and rode a buckskin cayuse that had
+to be knocked in the head and stunned before it could be
+saddled.  "I got an extry saddle an' a headstall at the
+hotel that you can use," he said, "but you'll have to get a
+horse."
+
+In the end the dentist bought a mule at the livery stable
+for forty dollars.  It turned out to be a good bargain,
+however, for the mule was a good traveller and seemed
+actually to fatten on sage-brush and potato parings.  When
+the actual transaction took place, McTeague had been obliged
+to get the money to pay for the mule out of the canvas sack. 
+Cribbens was with him at the time, and as the dentist
+unrolled his blankets and disclosed the sack, whistled in
+amazement.
+
+"An' me asking you if you had fifty dollars!" he exclaimed.
+"You carry your mine right around with you, don't you?"
+
+"Huh, I guess so," muttered the dentist.  "I--I just sold a
+claim I had up in El Dorado County," he added.
+
+At five o'clock on a magnificent May morning the
+"pardners" jogged out of Keeler, driving the burro before
+them.  Cribbens rode his cayuse, McTeague following in his
+rear on the mule.
+
+"Say," remarked Cribbens, "why in thunder don't you leave
+that fool canary behind at the hotel? It's going to be in
+your way all the time, an' it will sure die.  Better break
+its neck an' chuck it."
+
+"No, no," insisted the dentist.  "I've had it too long. I'll
+take it with me."
+
+"Well, that's the craziest idea I ever heard of," remarked
+Cribbens, "to take a canary along prospecting.  Why not kid
+gloves, and be done with it?"
+
+They travelled leisurely to the southeast during the day,
+following a well-beaten cattle road, and that evening camped
+on a spur of some hills at the head of the Panamint Valley
+where there was a spring.  The next day they crossed the
+Panamint itself.
+
+"That's a smart looking valley," observed the dentist.
+
+"NOW you're talking straight talk," returned Cribbens,
+sucking his mustache.  The valley was beautiful, wide,
+level, and very green.  Everywhere were herds of cattle,
+scarcely less wild than deer.  Once or twice cowboys passed
+them on the road, big-boned fellows, picturesque in their
+broad hats, hairy trousers, jingling spurs, and revolver
+belts, surprisingly like the pictures McTeague remembered to
+have seen.  Everyone of them knew Cribbens, and almost
+invariably joshed him on his venture.
+
+"Say, Crib, ye'd best take a wagon train with ye to bring
+your dust back."
+
+Cribbens resented their humor, and after they had passed,
+chewed fiercely on his mustache.
+
+"I'd like to make a strike, b'God! if it was only to get
+the laugh on them joshers."
+
+By noon they were climbing the eastern slope of the Panamint
+Range.  Long since they had abandoned the road; vegetation
+ceased; not a tree was in sight.  They followed faint cattle
+trails that led from one water hole to another.  By degrees
+these water holes grew dryer and dryer, and at three
+o'clock Cribbens halted and filled their canteens.
+
+"There ain't any TOO much water on the other side," he
+observed grimly.
+
+"It's pretty hot," muttered the dentist, wiping his
+streaming forehead with the back of his hand.
+
+"Huh!" snorted the other more grimly than ever.  The
+motionless air was like the mouth of a furnace.  Cribbens's
+pony lathered and panted.  McTeague's mule began to droop
+his long ears.  Only the little burro plodded resolutely on,
+picking the trail where McTeague could see but trackless
+sand and stunted sage.  Towards evening Cribbens, who was in
+the lead, drew rein on the summit of the hills.
+
+Behind them was the beautiful green Panamint Valley, but
+before and below them for miles and miles, as far as the eye
+could reach, a flat, white desert, empty even of sage-brush,
+unrolled toward the horizon.  In the immediate foreground a
+broken system of arroyos, and little canyons tumbled down to
+meet it.  To the north faint blue hills shouldered
+themselves above the horizon.
+
+"Well," observed Cribbens, "we're on the top of the Panamint
+Range now.  It's along this eastern slope, right below us
+here, that we're going to prospect.  Gold Gulch"--he pointed
+with the butt of his quirt--"is about eighteen or nineteen
+miles along here to the north of us.  Those hills way over
+yonder to the northeast are the Telescope hills."
+
+"What do you call the desert out yonder?"  McTeague's eyes
+wandered over the illimitable stretch of alkali that
+stretched out forever and forever to the east, to the north,
+and to the south.
+
+"That," said Cribbens, "that's Death Valley."
+
+There was a long pause.  The horses panted irregularly, the
+sweat dripping from their heaving bellies.  Cribbens and the
+dentist sat motionless in their saddles, looking out over
+that abominable desolation, silent, troubled.
+
+"God!" ejaculated Cribbens at length, under his breath, with
+a shake of his head.  Then he seemed to rouse himself. 
+"Well," he remarked, "first thing we got to do now is to
+find water."
+
+This was a long and difficult task.  They descended
+into one little canyon after another, followed the course of
+numberless arroyos, and even dug where there seemed
+indications of moisture, all to no purpose.  But at length
+McTeague's mule put his nose in the air and blew once or
+twice through his nostrils.
+
+"Smells it, the son of a gun!" exclaimed Cribbens.  The
+dentist let the animal have his head, and in a few minutes
+he had brought them to the bed of a tiny canyon where a thin
+stream of brackish water filtered over a ledge of rocks.
+
+"We'll camp here," observed Cribbens, "but we can't turn the
+horses loose.  We'll have to picket 'em with the lariats.  I
+saw some loco-weed back here a piece, and if they get to
+eating that, they'll sure go plum crazy.  The burro won't
+eat it, but I wouldn't trust the others."
+
+A new life began for McTeague.  After breakfast the
+"pardners" separated, going in opposite directions along the
+slope of the range, examining rocks, picking and chipping at
+ledges and bowlders, looking for signs, prospecting. 
+McTeague went up into the little canyons where the streams
+had cut through the bed rock, searching for veins of quartz,
+breaking out this quartz when he had found it, pulverizing
+and panning it.  Cribbens hunted for "contacts," closely
+examining country rocks and out-crops, continually on the
+lookout for spots where sedimentary and igneous rock came
+together.
+
+One day, after a week of prospecting, they met unexpectedly
+on the slope of an arroyo.  It was late in the afternoon. 
+"Hello, pardner," exclaimed Cribbens as he came down to
+where McTeague was bending over his pan.  "What luck?"
+
+The dentist emptied his pan and straightened up. "Nothing,
+nothing.  You struck anything?"
+
+"Not a trace.  Guess we might as well be moving towards
+camp."  They returned together, Cribbens telling the dentist
+of a group of antelope he had seen.
+
+"We might lay off to-morrow, an' see if we can plug a couple
+of them fellers.  Antelope steak would go pretty well after
+beans an' bacon an' coffee week in an' week out."
+
+McTeague was answering, when Cribbens interrupted him
+with an exclamation of profound disgust.  "I thought we were
+the first to prospect along in here, an' now look at that. 
+Don't it make you sick?"
+
+He pointed out evidences of an abandoned prospector's camp
+just before them--charred ashes, empty tin cans, one or two
+gold-miner's pans, and a broken pick.  "Don't that make you
+sick?" muttered Cribbens, sucking his mustache furiously. 
+"To think of us mushheads going over ground that's been
+covered already!  Say, pardner, we'll dig out of here to-
+morrow.  I've been thinking, anyhow, we'd better move to the
+south; that water of ours is pretty low."
+
+"Yes, yes, I guess so," assented the dentist.  "There ain't
+any gold here."
+
+"Yes, there is," protested Cribbens doggedly; "there's gold
+all through these hills, if we could only strike it.  I tell
+you what, pardner, I got a place in mind where I'll bet no
+one ain't prospected--least not very many.  There don't very
+many care to try an' get to it.  It's over on the other side
+of Death Valley. It's called Gold Mountain, an' there's only
+one mine been located there, an' it's paying like a nitrate
+bed. There ain't many people in that country, because it's
+all hell to get into. First place, you got to cross Death
+Valley and strike the Armagosa Range fur off to the south. 
+Well, no one ain't stuck on crossing the Valley, not if they
+can help it.  But we could work down the Panamint some
+hundred or so miles, maybe two hundred, an' fetch around by
+the Armagosa River, way to the south'erd.  We could prospect
+on the way.  But I guess the Armagosa'd be dried up at this
+season.  Anyhow," he concluded, "we'll move camp to the
+south to-morrow.  We got to get new feed an' water for the
+horses.  We'll see if we can knock over a couple of antelope
+to-morrow, and then we'll scoot."
+
+"I ain't got a gun," said the dentist; "not even a revolver.
+I--"
+
+"Wait a second," said Cribbens, pausing in his scramble down
+the side of one of the smaller gulches.  "Here's some slate
+here; I ain't seen no slate around here yet.  Let's see
+where it goes to."
+
+McTeague followed him along the side of the gulch.  Cribbens
+went on ahead, muttering to himself from time to time:
+
+"Runs right along here, even enough, and here's water too.
+Didn't know this stream was here; pretty near dry, though.
+Here's the slate again.  See where it runs, pardner?"
+
+"Look at it up there ahead," said McTeague.  "It runs right
+up over the back of this hill."
+
+"That's right," assented Cribbens.  "Hi!" he shouted
+suddenly, "HERE'S A 'CONTACT,' and here it is again, and
+there, and yonder.  Oh, look at it, will you?  That's grano-
+diorite on slate.  Couldn't want it any more distinct than
+that.  GOD! if we could only find the quartz between the
+two now."
+
+"Well, there it is," exclaimed McTeague.  "Look on ahead
+there; ain't that quartz?"
+
+"You're shouting right out loud," vociferated Cribbens,
+looking where McTeague was pointing.  His face went suddenly
+pale.  He turned to the dentist, his eyes wide.
+
+"By God, pardner," he exclaimed, breathlessly.  "By God--"
+he broke off abruptly.
+
+"That's what you been looking for, ain't it?" asked the
+dentist.
+
+"LOOKING for!  LOOKING for!" Cribbens checked
+himself .  "That's SLATE all right, and that's grano-
+diorite, I know"--he bent down and examined the rock--
+"and here's the quartz between 'em; there can't be no
+mistake about that.  Gi' me that hammer," he cried,
+excitedly.  "Come on, git to work. Jab into the quartz with
+your pick; git out some chunks of it."  Cribbens went down on
+his hands and knees, attacking the quartz vein furiously. 
+The dentist followed his example, swinging his pick with
+enormous force, splintering the rocks at every stroke. 
+Cribbens was talking to himself in his excitement.
+
+"Got you THIS time, you son of a gun!  By God!  I guess
+we got you THIS time, at last.  Looks like it, anyhow.
+GET a move on, pardner.  There ain't anybody 'round, is
+there? Hey?" Without looking, he drew his revolver and
+threw it to the dentist.  "Take the gun an' look around,
+pardner.  If you see any son of a gun ANYWHERE, PLUG
+him.  This yere's OUR claim.  I guess we got it THIS
+tide, pardner.  Come on."  He gathered up the chunks of
+quartz he had broken out, and put them in his hat and
+started towards their camp.  The two went along with great
+strides, hurrying as fast as they could over the uneven
+ground.
+
+"I don' know," exclaimed Cribbens, breathlessly, "I don'
+want to say too much.  Maybe we're fooled.  Lord, that damn
+camp's a long ways off.  Oh, I ain't goin' to fool along
+this way.  Come on, pardner."  He broke into a run. 
+McTeague followed at a lumbering gallop.  Over the scorched,
+parched ground, stumbling and tripping over sage-brush and
+sharp-pointed rocks, under the palpitating heat of the
+desert sun, they ran and scrambled, carrying the quartz
+lumps in their hats.
+
+"See any 'COLOR' in it, pardner?" gasped Cribbens.  "I
+can't, can you?  'Twouldn't be visible nohow, I guess. 
+Hurry up.  Lord, we ain't ever going to get to that camp."
+
+Finally they arrived.  Cribbens dumped the quartz fragments
+into a pan.
+
+"You pestle her, pardner, an' I'll fix the scales."  
+McTeague ground the lumps to fine dust in the iron mortar
+while Cribbens set up the tiny scales and got out the
+"spoons" from their outfit.
+
+"That's fine enough," Cribbens exclaimed, impatiently. "Now
+we'll spoon her.  Gi' me the water."
+
+Cribbens scooped up a spoonful of the fine white powder and
+began to spoon it carefully.  The two were on their hands
+and knees upon the ground, their heads close together, still
+panting with excitement and the exertion of their run.
+
+"Can't do it," exclaimed Cribbens, sitting back on his
+heels, "hand shakes so.  YOU take it, pardner. Careful,
+now."
+
+McTeague took the horn spoon and began rocking it gently in
+his huge fingers, sluicing the water over the edge a little
+at a time, each movement washing away a little more of the
+powdered quartz.  The two watched it with the intensest
+eagerness.
+
+"Don't see it yet; don't see it yet," whispered Cribbens,
+chewing his mustache.  "LEETLE faster, pardner.
+That's the ticket.  Careful, steady, now; leetle more,
+leetle more.  Don't see color yet, do you?"
+
+The quartz sediment dwindled by degrees as McTeague spooned
+it steadily.  Then at last a thin streak of a foreign
+substance began to show just along the edge. It was yellow.
+
+Neither spoke.  Cribbens dug his nails into the sand, and
+ground his mustache between his teeth.  The yellow streak
+broadened as the quartz sediment washed away. Cribbens
+whispered:
+
+"We got it, pardner.  That's gold."
+
+McTeague washed the last of the white quartz dust away, and
+let the water trickle after it.  A pinch of gold, fine as
+flour, was left in the bottom of the spoon.
+
+"There you are," he said.  The two looked at each other. 
+Then Cribbens rose into the air with a great leap and a yell
+that could have been heard for half a mile.
+
+"Yee-e-ow!  We GOT it, we struck it.  Pardner, we got
+it. Out of sight.  We're millionaires."  He snatched up his
+revolver and fired it with inconceivable rapidity.  "PUT
+it there, old man," he shouted, gripping McTeague's palm.
+
+"That's gold, all right," muttered McTeague, studying the
+contents of the spoon.
+
+"You bet your great-grandma's Cochin-China Chessy cat it's
+gold," shouted Cribbens.  "Here, now, we got a lot to do. 
+We got to stake her out an' put up the location notice. 
+We'll take our full acreage, you bet.  You--we haven't
+weighed this yet. Where's the scales?"  He weighed the pinch
+of gold with shaking hands.  "Two grains," he cried. 
+"That'll run five dollars to the ton.  Rich, it's rich; it's
+the richest kind of pay, pardner.  We're millionaires.  Why
+don't you say something?  Why don't you get excited?  Why
+don't you run around an' do something?"
+
+"Huh!" said McTeague, rolling his eyes.  "Huh!  I know, I
+know, we've struck it pretty rich."
+
+"Come on," exclaimed Cribbens, jumping up again. "We'll
+stake her out an' put up the location notice.  Lord, suppose
+anyone should have come on her while we've been away."  He
+reloaded his revolver deliberately.  "We'll drop
+HIM all right, if there's anyone fooling round there; I'll
+tell you those right now.  Bring the rifle, pardner, an' if
+you see anyone, PLUG him, an' ask him what he wants
+afterward."
+
+They hurried back to where they had made their discovery.
+
+"To think," exclaimed Cribbens, as he drove the first stake,
+"to think those other mushheads had their camp within
+gunshot of her and never located her.  Guess they didn't
+know the meaning of a 'contact.' Oh, I knew I was solid on
+'contacts.'"
+
+They staked out their claim, and Cribbens put up the notice
+of location.  It was dark before they were through. 
+Cribbens broke off some more chunks of quarts in the vein.
+
+"I'll spoon this too, just for the fun of it, when I get
+home," he explained, as they tramped back to the camp.
+
+"Well," said the dentist, "we got the laugh on those
+cowboys."
+
+"Have we?" shouted Cribbens.  "HAVE we?  Just wait and
+see the rush for this place when we tell 'em about it down
+in Keeler.  Say, what'll we call her?"
+
+"I don' know, I don' know."
+
+"We might call her the 'Last Chance.'  'Twas our last
+chance, wasn't it?  We'd 'a' gone antelope shooting
+tomorrow, and the next day we'd 'a'--say, what you stopping
+for?" he added, interrupting himself.  "What's up?"
+
+The dentist had paused abruptly on the crest of a canyon.
+Cribbens, looking back, saw him standing motionless in his
+tracks.
+
+"What's up?" asked Cribbens a second time.
+
+McTeague slowly turned his head and looked over one
+shoulder, then over the other.  Suddenly he wheeled sharply
+about, cocking the Winchester and tossing it to his
+shoulder.  Cribbens ran back to his side, whipping out his
+revolver.
+
+"What is it?" he cried.  "See anybody?"  He peered on ahead
+through the gathering twilight.
+
+"No, no."
+
+"Hear anything?"
+
+"No, didn't hear anything."
+
+"What is it then? What's up?"
+
+"I don' know, I don' know," muttered the dentist, lowering
+the rifle.  "There was something."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Something--didn't you notice?"
+
+"Notice what?"
+
+"I don' know.  Something--something or other."
+
+"Who?  What?  Notice what?  What did you see?"
+
+The dentist let down the hammer of the rifle.
+
+"I guess it wasn't anything," he said rather foolishly.
+
+"What d'you think you saw--anybody on the claim?"
+
+"I didn't see anything.  I didn't hear anything either. I
+had an idea, that's all; came all of a sudden, like that. 
+Something, I don' know what."
+
+"I guess you just imagined something.  There ain't anybody
+within twenty miles of us, I guess."
+
+"Yes, I guess so, just imagined it, that's the word."
+
+Half an hour later they had the fire going.  McTeague was
+frying strips of bacon over the coals, and Cribbens was
+still chattering and exclaiming over their great strike. 
+All at once McTeague put down the frying-pan.
+
+"What's that?" he growled.
+
+"Hey?  What's what?" exclaimed Cribbens, getting up.
+
+"Didn't you notice something?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Off there."  The dentist made a vague gesture toward the
+eastern horizon.  "Didn't you hear something--I mean see
+something--I mean--"
+
+"What's the matter with you, pardner?"
+
+"Nothing.  I guess I just imagined it."
+
+But it was not imagination.  Until midnight the partners lay
+broad awake, rolled in their blankets under the open sky,
+talking and discussing and making plans.  At last Cribbens
+rolled over on his side and slept.  The dentist could not
+sleep.
+
+What!  It was warning him again, that strange sixth sense, 
+that obscure brute instinct.  It was aroused again and
+clamoring to be obeyed.  Here, in these desolate barren
+hills, twenty miles from the nearest human being, it stirred
+and woke and rowelled him to be moving on.  It had goaded
+him to flight from the Big Dipper mine, and he had obeyed. 
+But now it was different; now he had suddenly become rich;
+he had lighted on a treasure--a treasure far more valuable
+than the Big Dipper mine itself.  How was he to leave that? 
+He could not move on now.  He turned about in his blankets. 
+No, he would not move on.  Perhaps it was his fancy, after
+all.  He saw nothing, heard nothing.  The emptiness of
+primeval desolation stretched from him leagues and leagues
+upon either hand.  The gigantic silence of the night lay
+close over everything, like a muffling Titanic palm. Of what
+was he suspicious? In that treeless waste an object could be
+seen at half a day's journey distant.  In that vast silence
+the click of a pebble was as audible as a pistol-shot.  And
+yet there was nothing, nothing.
+
+The dentist settled himself in his blankets and tried to
+sleep. In five minutes he was sitting up, staring into the
+blue-gray shimmer of the moonlight, straining his ears,
+watching and listening intently.  Nothing was in sight.  The
+browned and broken flanks of the Panamint hills lay quiet
+and familiar under the moon. The burro moved its head with a
+clinking of its bell; and McTeagues mule, dozing on three
+legs, changed its weight to another foot, with a long
+breath.  Everything fell silent again.
+
+"What is it?" muttered the dentist.  "If I could only see
+something, hear something."
+
+He threw off the blankets, and, rising, climbed to the
+summit of the nearest hill and looked back in the direction
+in which he and Cribbens had travelled a fortnight before. 
+For half an hour he waited, watching and listening in vain. 
+But as he returned to camp, and prepared to roll his
+blankets about him, the strange impulse rose in him again 
+abruptly, never so strong, never so insistent.  It seemed as
+though he were bitted and ridden; as if some unseen hand
+were turning him toward the east; some unseen heel spurring
+him to precipitate and instant flight.
+
+Flight from what?  "No," he muttered under his breath.  "Go
+now and leave the claim, and leave a fortune!  What a fool
+I'd be, when I can't see anything or hear anything.  To
+leave a fortune!  No, I won't.  No, by God!"  He drew
+Cribbens's Winchester toward him and slipped a cartridge
+into the magazine.
+
+"No," he growled.  "Whatever happens, I'm going to stay.  If
+anybody comes--"  He depressed the lever of the rifle, and
+sent the cartridge clashing into the breech.
+
+"I ain't going to sleep," he muttered under his mustache. 
+"I can't sleep; I'll watch."  He rose a second time,
+clambered to the nearest hilltop and sat down, drawing the
+blanket around him, and laying the Winchester across his
+knees.  The hours passed.  The dentist sat on the hilltop a
+motionless, crouching figure, inky black against the pale
+blur of the sky.  By and by the edge of the eastern horizon
+began to grow blacker and more distinct in out-line.  The
+dawn was coming.  Once more McTeague felt the mysterious
+intuition of approaching danger; an unseen hand seemed
+reining his head eastward; a spur was in his flanks that
+seemed to urge him to hurry, hurry, hurry.  The influence
+grew stronger with every moment.  The dentist set his great
+jaws together and held his ground.
+
+"No," he growled between his set teeth.  "No, I'll stay."  
+He made a long circuit around the camp, even going as far as
+the first stake of the new claim, his Winchester cocked, his
+ears pricked, his eyes alert.  There was nothing; yet as
+plainly as though it were shouted at the very nape of his
+neck he felt an enemy.  It was not fear.  McTeague was not
+afraid.
+
+"If I could only SEE something--somebody," he muttered,
+as he held the cocked rifle ready, "I--I'd show him."
+
+He returned to camp.  Cribbens was snoring.  The burro had
+come down to the stream for its morning drink.  The mule was
+awake and browsing.  McTeague stood irresolutely by the cold
+ashes of the camp-fire, looking from side to side with all
+the suspicion and wariness of a tracked stag.  Stronger and
+stronger grew the strange impulse.  It seemed to him that on
+the next instant he MUST perforce wheel sharply eastward
+and rush away headlong in a clumsy, lumbering gallop.  He
+fought against it with all the ferocious obstinacy of his
+simple brute nature.
+
+"Go, and leave the mine?  Go and leave a million
+dollars?  No, NO, I won't go.  No, I'll stay.  Ah," he
+exclaimed, under his breath, with a shake of his huge head,
+like an exasperated and harassed brute, "ah, show yourself,
+will you?"  He brought the rifle to his shoulder and covered
+point after point along the range of hills to the west. 
+"Come on, show yourself.  Come on a little, all of you.  I
+ain't afraid of you; but don't skulk this way.  You ain't
+going to drive me away from my mine.  I'm going to stay."
+
+An hour passed.  Then two.  The stars winked out, and the
+dawn whitened.  The air became warmer.  The whole east,
+clean of clouds, flamed opalescent from horizon to zenith,
+crimson at the base, where the earth blackened against it;
+at the top fading from pink to pale yellow, to green, to
+light blue, to the turquoise iridescence of the desert sky. 
+The long, thin shadows of the early hours drew backward like
+receding serpents, then suddenly the sun looked over the
+shoulder of the world, and it was day.
+
+At that moment McTeague was already eight miles away from
+the camp, going steadily eastward.  He was descending the
+lowest spurs of the Panamint hills, following an old and
+faint cattle trail.  Before him he drove his mule, laden
+with blankets, provisions for six days, Cribben's rifle, and
+a canteen full of water.  Securely bound to the pommel of
+the saddle was the canvas sack with its precious five
+thousand dollars, all in twenty-dollar gold pieces.  But
+strange enough in that horrid waste of sand and sage was the
+object that McTeague himself persistently carried--the
+canary in its cage, about which he had carefully wrapped a
+couple of old flour-bags.
+
+At about five o'clock that morning McTeague had crossed
+several trails which seemed to be converging, and, guessing
+that they led to a water hole, had followed one of them and
+had brought up at a sort of small sundried sink which 
+nevertheless contained a little water at the bottom.  He had
+watered the mule here, refilled the canteen, and drank deep
+himself.  He had also dampened the old flour-sacks around
+the bird cage to protect the little canary as far as
+possible from the heat that he knew would increase now with
+every hour. He had made ready to go forward again, but
+had paused irresolute again, hesitating for the last time.
+
+"I'm a fool," he growled, scowling back at the range behind
+him.  "I'm a fool.  What's the matter with me?  I'm just
+walking right away from a million dollars.  I know it's
+there.  No, by God!" he exclaimed, savagely, "I ain't going
+to do it.  I'm going back.  I can't leave a mine like that."  
+He had wheeled the mule about, and had started to return on
+his tracks, grinding his teeth fiercely, inclining his head
+forward as though butting against a wind that would beat him
+back.  "Go on, go on," he cried, sometimes addressing the
+mule, sometimes himself.  "Go on, go back, go back.  I
+WILL go back."  It was as though he were climbing a hill
+that grew steeper with every stride.  The strange impelling
+instinct fought his advance yard by yard.  By degrees the
+dentist's steps grew slower; he stopped, went forward again
+cautiously, almost feeling his way, like someone approaching
+a pit in the darkness.  He stopped again, hesitating,
+gnashing his teeth, clinching his fists with blind fury. 
+Suddenly he turned the mule about, and once more set his
+face to the eastward.
+
+"I can't," he cried aloud to the desert; "I can't, I can't. 
+It's stronger than I am.  I CAN'T go back. Hurry now,
+hurry, hurry, hurry."
+
+He hastened on furtively, his head and shoulders bent. At
+times one could almost say he crouched as he pushed forward
+with long strides; now and then he even looked over his
+shoulder.  Sweat rolled from him, he lost his hat, and the
+matted mane of thick yellow hair swept over his forehead and
+shaded his small, twinkling eyes.  At times, with a vague,
+nearly automatic gesture, he reached his hand forward, the
+fingers prehensile, and directed towards the horizon, as if
+he would clutch it and draw it nearer; and at intervals he
+muttered, "Hurry, hurry, hurry on, hurry on."  For now at
+last McTeague was afraid.
+
+His plans were uncertain.  He remembered what Cribbens had
+said about the Armagosa Mountains in the country on the
+other side of Death Valley.  It was all hell to get into
+that country, Cribbens had said, and not many men went
+there, because of the terrible valley of alkali that
+barred the way, a horrible vast sink of white sand and salt
+below even the sea level, the dry bed, no doubt, of some
+prehistoric lake.  But McTeague resolved to make a circuit
+of the valley, keeping to the south, until he should strike
+the Armagosa River.  He would make a circuit of the valley
+and come up on the other side.  He would get into that
+country around Gold Mountain in the Armagosa hills, barred
+off from the world by the leagues of the red-hot alkali of
+Death Valley.  "They" would hardly reach him there.  He
+would stay at Gold Mountain two or three months, and then
+work his way down into Mexico.
+
+McTeague tramped steadily forward, still descending the
+lower irregularities of the Panamint Range.  By nine o'clock
+the slope flattened out abruptly; the hills were behind him;
+before him, to the east, all was level.  He had reached the
+region where even the sand and sage-brush begin to dwindle,
+giving place to white, powdered alkali.  The trails were
+numerous, but old and faint; and they had been made by
+cattle, not by men.  They led in all directions but one--
+north, south, and west; but not one, however faint, struck
+out towards the valley.
+
+"If I keep along the edge of the hills where these trails
+are," muttered the dentist, "I ought to find water up in the
+arroyos from time to time."
+
+At once he uttered an exclamation.  The mule had begun to
+squeal and lash out with alternate hoofs, his eyes rolling,
+his ears flattened.  He ran a few steps, halted, and
+squealed again. Then, suddenly wheeling at right angles, set
+off on a jog trot to the north, squealing and kicking from
+time to time.  McTeague ran after him shouting and swearing,
+but for a long time the mule would not allow himself to be
+caught.  He seemed more bewildered than frightened.
+
+"He's eatun some of that loco-weed that Cribbens spoke
+about," panted McTeague.  "Whoa, there; steady, you."  At
+length the mule stopped of his own accord, and seemed to
+come to his senses again.  McTeague came up and took the
+bridle rein, speaking to him and rubbing his nose.
+
+"There, there, what's the matter with you?"  The mule
+was docile again.  McTeague washed his mouth and set forward
+once more.
+
+The day was magnificent.  From horizon to horizon was one
+vast span of blue, whitening as it dipped earthward.  Miles
+upon miles to the east and southeast the desert unrolled
+itself, white, naked, inhospitable, palpitating and
+shimmering under the sun, unbroken by so much as a rock or
+cactus stump.  In the distance it assumed all manner of
+faint colors, pink, purple, and pale orange.   To the west
+rose the Panamint Range, sparsely sprinkled with gray sage-
+brush; here the earths and sands were yellow, ochre, and
+rich, deep red, the hollows and canyons picked out with
+intense blue shadows.  It seemed strange that such
+barrenness could exhibit this radiance of color, but nothing
+could have been more beautiful than the deep red of the
+higher bluffs and ridges, seamed with purple shadows,
+standing sharply out against the pale-blue whiteness of the
+horizon.
+
+By nine o'clock the sun stood high in the sky.  The heat was
+intense; the atmosphere was thick and heavy with it. 
+McTeague gasped for breath and wiped the beads of
+perspiration from his forehead, his cheeks, and his neck. 
+Every inch and pore of his skin was tingling and pricking
+under the merciless lash of the sun's rays.
+
+"If it gets much hotter," he muttered, with a long breath,
+"if it gets much hotter, I--I don' know--"  He wagged his
+head and wiped the sweat from his eyelids, where it was
+running like tears.
+
+The sun rose higher; hour by hour, as the dentist tramped
+steadily on, the heat increased.  The baked dry sand
+crackled into innumerable tiny flakes under his feet.  The
+twigs of the sage-brush snapped like brittle pipestems as he
+pushed through them.  It grew hotter. At eleven the earth
+was like the surface of a furnace; the air, as McTeague
+breathed it in, was hot to his lips and the roof of his
+mouth.  The sun was a disk of molten brass swimming in the
+burnt-out blue of the sky. McTeague stripped off his
+woollen shirt, and even unbuttoned his flannel
+undershirt, tying a handkerchief loosely about his neck.
+
+"Lord!" he exclaimed.  "I never knew it COULD get as hot
+as this."
+
+The heat grew steadily fiercer; all distant objects were
+visibly shimmering and palpitating under it.  At noon a
+mirage appeared on the hills to the northwest.  McTeague
+halted the mule, and drank from the tepid water in the
+canteen, dampening the sack around the canary's cage.  As
+soon as he ceased his tramp and the noise of his crunching,
+grinding footsteps died away, the silence, vast,
+illimitable, enfolded him like an immeasurable tide.  From
+all that gigantic landscape, that colossal reach of baking
+sand, there arose not a single sound.  Not a twig rattled,
+not an insect hummed, not a bird or beast invaded that huge
+solitude with call or cry.  Everything as far as the eye
+could reach, to north, to south, to east, and west, lay
+inert, absolutely quiet and moveless under the remorseless
+scourge of the noon sun.  The very shadows shrank away,
+hiding under sage-bushes, retreating to the farthest nooks
+and crevices in the canyons of the hills.  All the world was
+one gigantic blinding glare, silent, motionless.  "If it
+gets much hotter," murmured the dentist again, moving his
+head from side to side, "if it gets much hotter, I don' know
+what I'll do."
+
+Steadily the heat increased.  At three o'clock it was even
+more terrible than it had been at noon.
+
+"Ain't it EVER going to let up?" groaned the dentist,
+rolling his eyes at the sky of hot blue brass.  Then, as he
+spoke, the stillness was abruptly stabbed through and
+through by a shrill sound that seemed to come from all sides
+at once.  It ceased; then, as McTeague took another forward
+step, began again with the suddenness of a blow, shriller,
+nearer at hand, a hideous, prolonged note that brought both
+man and mule to an instant halt.
+
+"I know what THAT is," exclaimed the dentist.  His eyes
+searched the ground swiftly until he saw what he expected he
+should see--the round thick coil, the slowly waving clover-
+shaped head and erect whirring tail with its vibrant
+rattles.
+
+For fully thirty seconds the man and snake remained
+looking into each other's eyes.  Then the snake uncoiled and
+swiftly wound from sight amidst the sagebrush.  McTeague
+drew breath again, and his eyes once more beheld the
+illimitable leagues of quivering sand and alkali.
+
+"Good Lord!  What a country!" he exclaimed.  But his voice
+was trembling as he urged forward the mule once more.
+
+Fiercer and fiercer grew the heat as the afternoon advanced. 
+At four McTeague stopped again.  He was dripping at every
+pore, but there was no relief in perspiration.  The very
+touch of his clothes upon his body was unendurable.  The
+mule's ears were drooping and his tongue lolled from his
+mouth.  The cattle trails seemed to be drawing together
+toward a common point; perhaps a water hole was near by.
+
+"I'll have to lay up, sure," muttered the dentist.  "I ain't
+made to travel in such heat as this."
+
+He drove the mule up into one of the larger canyons and
+halted in the shadow of a pile of red rock.  After a long
+search he found water, a few quarts, warm and brackish, at
+the bottom of a hollow of sunwracked mud; it was little more
+than enough to water the mule and refill his canteen.  Here
+he camped, easing the mule of the saddle, and turning him
+loose to find what nourishment he might.  A few hours later
+the sun set in a cloudless glory of red and gold, and the
+heat became by degrees less intolerable.  McTeague cooked
+his supper, chiefly coffee and bacon, and watched the
+twilight come on, revelling in the delicious coolness of the
+evening.  As he spread his blankets on the ground he
+resolved that hereafter he would travel only at night,
+laying up in the daytime in the shade of the canyons.  He
+was exhausted with his terrible day's march.  Never in his
+life had sleep seemed so sweet to him.
+
+But suddenly he was broad awake, his jaded senses all alert.
+
+"What was that?" he muttered.  "I thought I heard something
+--saw something."
+
+He rose to his feet, reaching for the Winchester. Desolation
+lay still around him.  There was not a sound but his own
+breathing; on the face of the desert not a grain of sand was
+in motion. McTeague looked furtively and quickly from
+side to side, his teeth set, his eyes rolling.  Once more
+the rowel was in his flanks, once more an unseen hand reined
+him toward the east. After all the miles of that dreadful
+day's flight he was no better off than when he started.  If
+anything, he was worse, for never had that mysterious
+instinct in him been more insistent than now; never had the
+impulse toward precipitate flight been stronger; never had
+the spur bit deeper.  Every nerve of his body cried aloud
+for rest; yet every instinct seemed aroused and alive,
+goading him to hurry on, to hurry on.
+
+"What IS it, then?  What is it?" he cried, between his
+teeth.  "Can't I ever get rid of you? Ain't I EVER going
+to shake you off?  Don' keep it up this way.  Show
+yourselves.  Let's have it out right away.  Come on.  I
+ain't afraid if you'll only come on; but don't skulk this
+way."  Suddenly he cried aloud in a frenzy of exasperation,
+"Damn you, come on, will you?  Come on and have it out."  
+His rifle was at his shoulder, he was covering bush after
+bush, rock after rock, aiming at every denser shadow.  All
+at once, and quite involuntarily, his forefinger crooked,
+and the rifle spoke and flamed.  The canyons roared back the
+echo, tossing it out far over the desert in a rippling,
+widening wave of sound.
+
+McTeague lowered the rifle hastily, with an exclamation of
+dismay.
+
+"You fool," he said to himself, "you fool.  You've done it
+now. They could hear that miles away.  You've done it now."
+
+He stood listening intently, the rifle smoking in his hands.
+The last echo died away.  The smoke vanished, the vast
+silence closed upon the passing echoes of the rifle as the
+ocean closes upon a ship's wake.  Nothing moved; yet
+McTeague bestirred himself sharply, rolling up his blankets,
+resaddling the mule, getting his outfit together again. 
+From time to time he muttered:
+
+"Hurry now; hurry on.  You fool, you've done it now. They
+could hear that miles away.  Hurry now.  They ain't far off
+now."
+
+As he depressed the lever of the rifle to reload it, he
+found that the magazine was empty.  He clapped his hands to
+his sides, feeling rapidly first in one pocket, then in
+another.  He had forgotten to take extra cartridges
+with him.  McTeague swore under his breath as he flung the
+rifle away.  Henceforth he must travel unarmed.
+
+A little more water had gathered in the mud hole near which
+he had camped.  He watered the mule for the last time and
+wet the sacks around the canary's cage.  Then once more he
+set forward.
+
+But there was a change in the direction of McTeague's
+flight. Hitherto he had held to the south, keeping upon the
+very edge of the hills; now he turned sharply at right
+angles.  The slope fell away beneath his hurrying feet; the
+sage-brush dwindled, and at length ceased; the sand gave
+place to a fine powder, white as snow; and an hour after he
+had fired the rifle his mule's hoofs were crisping and
+cracking the sun-baked flakes of alkali on the surface of
+Death Valley.
+
+Tracked and harried, as he felt himself to be, from one
+camping place to another, McTeague had suddenly resolved to
+make one last effort to rid himself of the enemy that seemed
+to hang upon his heels.  He would strike straight out into
+that horrible wilderness where even the beasts were afraid. 
+He would cross Death Valley at once and put its arid wastes
+between him and his pursuer.
+
+"You don't dare follow me now," he muttered, as he hurried
+on. "Let's see you come out HERE after me."
+
+He hurried on swiftly, urging the mule to a rapid racking
+walk. Towards four o'clock the sky in front of him began to
+flush pink and golden.  McTeague halted and breakfasted,
+pushing on again immediately afterward.  The dawn flamed and
+glowed like a brazier, and the sun rose a vast red-hot coal
+floating in fire. An hour passed, then another, and another. 
+It was about nine o'clock.  Once more the dentist paused,
+and stood panting and blowing, his arms dangling, his eyes
+screwed up and blinking as he looked about him.
+
+Far behind him the Panamint hills were already but blue
+hummocks on the horizon.  Before him and upon either side,
+to the north and to the east and to the south, stretched
+primordial desolation.  League upon league the infinite
+reaches of dazzling white alkali laid themselves out like an
+immeasurable scroll unrolled from horizon to horizon; not a
+bush, not a twig relieved that horrible monotony.  Even the
+sand of the desert would have been a welcome sight; a single
+clump of sage-brush would have fascinated the eye; but this
+was worse than the desert.  It was abominable, this hideous
+sink of alkali, this bed of some primeval lake lying so far
+below the level of the ocean. The great mountains of Placer
+County had been merely indifferent to man; but this awful
+sink of alkali was openly and unreservedly iniquitous and
+malignant.
+
+McTeague had told himself that the heat upon the lower
+slopes of the Panamint had been dreadful; here in Death
+Valley it became a thing of terror.  There was no longer any
+shadow but his own. He was scorched and parched from head to
+heel.  It seemed to him that the smart of his tortured body
+could not have been keener if he had been flayed.
+
+"If it gets much hotter," he muttered, wringing the sweat
+from his thick fell of hair and mustache, "if it gets much
+hotter, I don' know what I'll do."  He was thirsty, and
+drank a little from his canteen.  "I ain't got any too much
+water," he murmured, shaking the canteen.  "I got to get out
+of this place in a hurry, sure."
+
+By eleven o'clock the heat had increased to such an extent
+that McTeague could feel the burning of the ground come
+pringling and stinging through the soles of his boots. 
+Every step he took threw up clouds of impalpable alkali
+dust, salty and choking, so that he strangled and coughed
+and sneezed with it.
+
+"LORD! what a country!" exclaimed the dentist.
+
+An hour later, the mule stopped and lay down, his jaws wide
+open, his ears dangling.  McTeague washed his mouth with a
+handful of water and for a second time since sunrise wetted
+the flour-sacks around the bird cage.  The air was quivering
+and palpitating like that in the stoke-hold of a steamship. 
+The sun, small and contracted, swam molten overhead.
+
+"I can't stand it," said McTeague at length.  "I'll have to
+stop and make some kinda shade."
+
+The mule was crouched upon the ground, panting rapidly,
+with half-closed eyes.  The dentist removed the saddle, and
+unrolling his blanket, propped it up as best he could
+between him and the sun.  As he stooped down to crawl
+beneath it, his palm touched the ground.  He snatched it
+away with a cry of pain.  The surface alkali was oven-hot;
+he was obliged to scoop out a trench in it before he dared
+to lie down.
+
+By degrees the dentist began to doze.  He had had little or
+no sleep the night before, and the hurry of his flight under
+the blazing sun had exhausted him.  But his rest was broken;
+between waking and sleeping, all manner of troublous images
+galloped through his brain.  He thought he was back in the
+Panamint hills again with Cribbens.  They had just
+discovered the mine and were returning toward camp. 
+McTeague saw himself as another man, striding along over the
+sand and sagebrush.  At once he saw himself stop and wheel
+sharply about, peering back suspiciously.  There was
+something behind him; something was following him. He
+looked, as it were, over the shoulder of this other
+McTeague, and saw down there, in the half light of the
+canyon, something dark crawling upon the ground, an
+indistinct gray figure, man or brute, he did not know.  Then
+he saw another, and another; then another.  A score of
+black, crawling objects were following him, crawling from
+bush to bush, converging upon him.  "THEY" were after
+him, were closing in upon him, were within touch of his
+hand, were at his feet--WERE AT HIS THROAT.
+
+McTeague jumped up with a shout, oversetting the blanket. 
+There was nothing in sight.  For miles around, the alkali
+was empty, solitary, quivering and shimmering under the
+pelting fire of the afternoon's sun.
+
+But once more the spur bit into his body, goading him on.
+There was to be no rest, no going back, no pause, no stop. 
+Hurry, hurry, hurry on.  The brute that in him slept so
+close to the surface was alive and alert, and tugging to be
+gone.  There was no resisting that instinct.  The brute felt
+an enemy, scented the trackers, clamored and struggled and
+fought, and would not be gainsaid.
+
+"I CAN'T go on," groaned McTeague, his eyes
+sweeping the horizon behind him, "I'm beat out.  I'm dog
+tired.  I ain't slept any for two nights."  But for all that
+he roused himself again, saddled the mule, scarcely less
+exhausted than himself, and pushed on once more over the
+scorching alkali and under the blazing sun.
+
+From that time on the fear never left him, the spur never
+ceased to bite, the instinct that goaded him to fight never
+was dumb; hurry or halt, it was all the same.  On he went,
+straight on, chasing the receding horizon; flagellated with
+heat; tortured with thirst; crouching over; looking
+furtively behind, and at times reaching his hand forward,
+the fingers prehensile, grasping, as it were, toward the
+horizon, that always fled before him.
+
+The sun set upon the third day of McTeague's flight, night
+came on, the stars burned slowly into the cool dark purple
+of the sky.  The gigantic sink of white alkali glowed like
+snow. McTeague, now far into the desert, held steadily on,
+swinging forward with great strides.  His enormous strength
+held him doggedly to his work.  Sullenly, with his huge jaws
+gripping stolidly together, he pushed on.  At midnight he
+stopped.
+
+"Now," he growled, with a certain desperate defiance, as
+though he expected to be heard, "now, I'm going to lay up
+and get some sleep.  You can come or not."
+
+He cleared away the hot surface alkali, spread out his
+blanket, and slept until the next day's heat aroused him.
+His water was so low that he dared not make coffee now, and
+so breakfasted without it.  Until ten o'clock he tramped
+forward, then camped again in the shade of one of the rare
+rock ledges, and "lay up" during the heat of the day.  By
+five o'clock he was once more on the march.
+
+He travelled on for the greater part of that night, stopping
+only once towards three in the morning to water the mule
+from the canteen.  Again the red-hot day burned up over the
+horizon. Even at six o'clock it was hot.
+
+"It's going to be worse than ever to-day," he groaned.  "I
+wish I could find another rock to camp by.  Ain't I ever
+going to get out of this place?"
+
+There was no change in the character of the desert.
+Always the same measureless leagues of white-hot alkali
+stretched away toward the horizon on every hand.  Here and
+there the flat, dazzling surface of the desert broke and
+raised into long low mounds, from the summit of which
+McTeague could look for miles and miles over its horrible
+desolation.  No shade was in sight. Not a rock, not a stone
+broke the monotony of the ground. Again and again he
+ascended the low unevennesses, looking and searching for a
+camping place, shading his eyes from the glitter of sand and
+sky.
+
+He tramped forward a little farther, then paused at length
+in a hollow between two breaks, resolving to make camp
+there.
+
+Suddenly there was a shout.
+
+"Hands up.  By damn, I got the drop on you!"
+
+McTeague looked up.
+
+It was Marcus.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+
+Within a month after his departure from San Francisco,
+Marcus had "gone in on a cattle ranch" in the Panamint
+Valley with an Englishman, an acquaintance of Mr. Sieppe's. 
+His headquarters were at a place called Modoc, at the lower
+extremity of the valley, about fifty miles by trail to the
+south of Keeler.
+
+His life was the life of a cowboy.  He realized his former
+vision of himself, booted, sombreroed, and revolvered,
+passing his days in the saddle and the better part of his
+nights around the poker tables in Modoc's one saloon.  To
+his intense satisfaction he even involved himself in a
+gun fight that arose over a disputed brand, with the result
+that two fingers of his left hand were shot away.
+
+News from the outside world filtered slowly into the
+Panamint Valley, and the telegraph had never been built
+beyond Keeler. At intervals one of the local papers of
+Independence, the nearest large town, found its way into the
+cattle camps on the ranges, and occasionally one of the
+Sunday editions of a Sacramento journal, weeks old, was
+passed from hand to hand. Marcus ceased to hear from the
+Sieppes.  As for San Francisco, it was as far from him as
+was London or Vienna.
+
+One day, a fortnight after McTeague's flight from San
+Francisco, Marcus rode into Modoc, to find a group of men
+gathered about a notice affixed to the outside of the Wells-
+Fargo office.  It was an offer of reward for the arrest and
+apprehension of a murderer.  The crime had been committed in
+San Francisco, but the man wanted had been traced as far as
+the western portion of Inyo County, and was believed at that
+time to be in hiding in either the Pinto or Panamint hills,
+in the vicinity of Keeler.
+
+Marcus reached Keeler on the afternoon of that same day. 
+Half a mile from the town his pony fell and died from
+exhaustion. Marcus did not stop even to remove the saddle. 
+He arrived in the barroom of the hotel in Keeler just after
+the posse had been made up.  The sheriff, who had come down
+from Independence that morning, at first refused his offer
+of assistance.  He had enough men already--too many, in
+fact.  The country travelled through would be hard, and it
+would be difficult to find water for so many men and horses.
+
+"But none of you fellers have ever seen um," vociferated
+Marcus, quivering with excitement and wrath.  "I know um 
+well.  I could pick um out in a million.  I can identify um,
+and you fellers can't.  And I knew--I knew--good GOD!  I
+knew that girl--his wife--in Frisco.  She's a cousin of
+mine, she is--she was--I thought once of--This thing's a
+personal matter of mine--an' that money he got away with,
+that five thousand, belongs to me by rights.  Oh, never
+mind, I'm going along.  Do you hear?" he shouted, his fists
+raised, "I'm going along, I tell you.  There ain't a
+man of you big enough to stop me.  Let's see you try and
+stop me going.  Let's see you once, any two of you."  He
+filled the barroom with his clamor.
+
+"Lord love you, come along, then," said the sheriff.
+
+The posse rode out of Keeler that same night.  The keeper of
+the general merchandise store, from whom Marcus had borrowed
+a second pony, had informed them that Cribbens and his
+partner, whose description tallied exactly with that given
+in the notice of reward, had outfitted at his place with a
+view to prospecting in the Panamint hills.  The posse
+trailed them at once to their first camp at the head of the
+valley.  It was an easy matter. It was only necessary to
+inquire of the cowboys and range riders of the valley if
+they had seen and noted the passage of two men, one of whom
+carried a bird cage.
+
+Beyond this first camp the trail was lost, and a week was
+wasted in a bootless search around the mine at Gold Gulch,
+whither it seemed probable the partners had gone.  Then a
+travelling peddler, who included Gold Gulch in his route,
+brought in the news of a wonderful strike of gold-bearing
+quartz some ten miles to the south on the western slope of
+the range.  Two men from Keeler had made a strike, the
+peddler had said, and added the curious detail that one of
+the men had a canary bird in a cage with him.
+
+The posse made Cribbens's camp three days after the
+unaccountable disappearance of his partner.  Their man was
+gone, but the narrow hoof prints of a mule, mixed with those
+of huge hob-nailed boots, could be plainly followed in the
+sand.  Here they picked up the trail and held to it steadily
+till the point was reached where, instead of tending
+southward it swerved abruptly to the east.  The men could
+hardly believe their eyes.
+
+"It ain't reason," exclaimed the sheriff.  "What in thunder
+is he up to?  This beats me.  Cutting out into Death Valley
+at this time of year."
+
+"He's heading for Gold Mountain over in the Armagosa, sure."
+
+The men decided that this conjecture was true.  It was the
+only inhabited locality in that direction.  A
+discussion began as to the further movements of the posse.
+
+"I don't figure on going into that alkali sink with no eight
+men and horses," declared the sheriff.  "One man can't carry
+enough water to take him and his mount across, let alone
+EIGHT. No, sir.  Four couldn't do it.  No, THREE
+couldn't.  We've got to make a circuit round the valley and
+come up on the other side and head him off at Gold Mountain. 
+That's what we got to do, and ride like hell to do it, too."
+
+But Marcus protested with all the strength of his lungs
+against abandoning the trail now that they had found it.  He
+argued that they were but a day and a half behind their man
+now.  There was no possibility of their missing the trail--
+as distinct in the white alkali as in snow.  They could make
+a dash into the valley, secure their man, and return long
+before their water failed them.  He, for one, would not give
+up the pursuit, now that they were so close.  In the haste
+of the departure from Keeler the sheriff had neglected to
+swear him in.  He was under no orders.  He would do as he
+pleased.
+
+"Go on, then, you darn fool," answered the sheriff.  "We'll
+cut on round the valley, for all that.  It's a gamble he'll
+be at Gold Mountain before you're half way across.  But if
+you catch him, here"--he tossed Marcus a pair of handcuffs--
+"put 'em on him and bring him back to Keeler."
+
+Two days after he had left the posse, and when he was
+already far out in the desert, Marcus's horse gave out.  In
+the fury of his impatience he had spurred mercilessly
+forward on the trail, and on the morning of the third day
+found that his horse was unable to move. The joints of his
+legs seemed locked rigidly. He would go his own length,
+stumbling and interfering, then collapse helplessly upon the
+ground with a pitiful groan.  He was used up.
+
+Marcus believed himself to be close upon McTeague now.  The
+ashes at his last camp had still been smoldering. Marcus
+took what supplies of food and water he could carry, and
+hurried on.  But McTeague was farther ahead than he had
+guessed, and by evening of his third day upon the desert
+Marcus, raging with thirst, had drunk his last mouthful
+of water and had flung away the empty canteen.
+
+"If he ain't got water with um," he said to himself as he
+pushed on, "If he ain't got water with um, by damn!  I'll be
+in a bad way.  I will, for a fact."
+
+*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+
+At Marcus's shout McTeague looked up and around him. For the
+instant he saw no one.  The white glare of alkali was still
+unbroken.  Then his swiftly rolling eyes lighted upon a head
+and shoulder that protruded above the low crest of the break
+directly in front of him.  A man was there, lying at full
+length upon the ground, covering him with a revolver.  For a
+few seconds McTeague looked at the man stupidly, bewildered,
+confused, as yet without definite thought. Then he noticed
+that the man was singularly like Marcus Schouler.  It
+WAS Marcus Schouler.  How in the world did Marcus Schouler
+come to be in that desert?  What did he mean by pointing a
+pistol at him that way?  He'd best look out or the pistol
+would go off.  Then his thoughts readjusted themselves with
+a swiftness born of a vivid sense of danger.  Here was the
+enemy at last, the tracker he had felt upon his footsteps.
+Now at length he had "come on" and shown himself, after all
+those days of skulking.  McTeague was glad of it.  He'd show
+him now.  They two would have it out right then and there.
+His rifle!  He had thrown it away long since.  He was
+helpless.  Marcus had ordered him to put up his hands.  If
+he did not, Marcus would kill him.  He had the drop on him. 
+McTeague stared, scowling fiercely at the levelled pistol. 
+He did not move.
+
+"Hands up!" shouted Marcus a second time.  "I'll give you
+three to do it in.  One, two----"
+
+Instinctively McTeague put his hands above his head.
+
+Marcus rose and came towards him over the break.
+
+"Keep 'em up," he cried.  "If you move 'em once I'll kill
+you, sure."
+
+He came up to McTeague and searched him, going through
+his pockets; but McTeague had no revolver; not even a
+hunting knife.
+
+"What did you do with that money, with that five thousand
+dollars?"
+
+"It's on the mule," answered McTeague, sullenly.
+
+Marcus grunted, and cast a glance at the mule, who was
+standing some distance away, snorting nervously, and from
+time to time flattening his long ears.
+
+"Is that it there on the horn of the saddle, there in that
+canvas sack?" Marcus demanded.
+
+"Yes, that's it."
+
+A gleam of satisfaction came into Marcus's eyes, and under
+his breath he muttered:
+
+"Got it at last."
+
+He was singularly puzzled to know what next to do.  He had
+got McTeague.  There he stood at length, with his big hands
+over his head, scowling at him sullenly.  Marcus had caught
+his enemy, had run down the man for whom every officer in
+the State had been looking.  What should he do with him now? 
+He couldn't keep him standing there forever with his hands
+over his head.
+
+"Got any water?" he demanded.
+
+"There's a canteen of water on the mule."
+
+Marcus moved toward the mule and made as if to reach the
+bridle-rein.  The mule squealed, threw up his head, and
+galloped to a little distance, rolling his eyes and
+flattening his ears.
+
+Marcus swore wrathfully.
+
+"He acted that way once before," explained McTeague, his
+hands still in the air.  "He ate some loco-weed back in the
+hills before I started."
+
+For a moment Marcus hesitated.  While he was catching the
+mule McTeague might get away.  But where to, in heaven's
+name?  A rat could not hide on the surface of that
+glistening alkali, and besides, all McTeague's store of
+provisions and his priceless supply of water were on the
+mule.  Marcus ran after the mule, revolver in hand, shouting
+and cursing.  But the mule would not be caught.  He
+acted as if possessed, squealing, lashing out, and galloping
+in wide circles, his head high in the air.
+
+"Come on," shouted Marcus, furious, turning back to
+McTeague. "Come on, help me catch him.  We got to catch him. 
+All the water we got is on the saddle."
+
+McTeague came up.
+
+"He's eatun some loco-weed," he repeated.  "He went kinda
+crazy once before."
+
+"If he should take it into his head to bolt and keep on
+running----"
+
+Marcus did not finish.  A sudden great fear seemed to widen
+around and inclose the two men.  Once their water gone, the
+end would not be long.
+
+"We can catch him all right," said the dentist.  "I caught
+him once before."
+
+"Oh, I guess we can catch him," answered Marcus,
+reassuringly.
+
+Already the sense of enmity between the two had weakened in
+the face of a common peril.  Marcus let down the hammer of
+his revolver and slid it back into the holster.
+
+The mule was trotting on ahead, snorting and throwing up
+great clouds of alkali dust.  At every step the canvas sack
+jingled, and McTeague's bird cage, still wrapped in the
+flour-bags, bumped against the saddlepads.  By and by the
+mule stopped, blowing out his nostrils excitedly.
+
+"He's clean crazy," fumed Marcus, panting and swearing.
+
+"We ought to come up on him quiet," observed McTeague.
+
+"I'll try and sneak up," said Marcus; "two of us would scare
+him again.  You stay here."
+
+Marcus went forward a step at a time.  He was almost within
+arm's length of the bridle when the mule shied from him
+abruptly and galloped away.
+
+Marcus danced with rage, shaking his fists, and swearing
+horribly.  Some hundred yards away the mule paused and began
+blowing and snuffing in the alkali as though in search of
+feed. Then, for no reason, he shied again, and started
+off on a jog trot toward the east.
+
+"We've GOT to follow him," exclaimed Marcus as McTeague
+came up.  "There's no water within seventy miles of here."
+
+Then began an interminable pursuit.  Mile after mile, under
+the terrible heat of the desert sun, the two men followed
+the mule, racked with a thirst that grew fiercer every hour.
+A dozen times they could almost touch the canteen of water,
+and as often the distraught animal shied away and fled
+before them.  At length Marcus cried:
+
+"It's no use, we can't catch him, and we're killing
+ourselves with thirst.  We got to take our chances."  He drew
+his revolver from its holster, cocked it, and crept forward.
+
+"Steady, now," said McTeague; "it won' do to shoot through
+the canteen."
+
+Within twenty yards Marcus paused, made a rest of his left
+forearm and fired.
+
+"You GOT him," cried McTeague.  "No, he's up again.
+Shoot him again.  He's going to bolt."
+
+Marcus ran on, firing as he ran.  The mule, one foreleg
+trailing, scrambled along, squealing and snorting.  Marcus
+fired his last shot.  The mule pitched forward upon his
+head, then, rolling sideways, fell upon the canteen,
+bursting it open and spilling its entire contents into the
+sand.
+
+Marcus and McTeague ran up, and Marcus snatched the battered
+canteen from under the reeking, bloody hide. There was no
+water left.  Marcus flung the canteen from him and stood up,
+facing McTeague.  There was a pause.
+
+"We're dead men," said Marcus.
+
+McTeague looked from him out over the desert.  Chaotic
+desolation stretched from them on either hand, flaming and
+glaring with the afternoon heat.  There was the brazen sky
+and the leagues upon leagues of alkali, leper white.  There
+was nothing more.  They were in the heart of Death Valley.
+
+"Not a drop of water," muttered McTeague; "not a drop of
+water."
+
+"We can drink the mule's blood," said Marcus.  "It's
+been done before.  But--but--" he looked down at the
+quivering, gory body--"but I ain't thirsty enough for that
+yet."
+
+"Where's the nearest water?"
+
+"Well, it's about a hundred miles or more back of us in the
+Panamint hills," returned Marcus, doggedly.  "We'd be crazy
+long before we reached it.  I tell you, we're done for, by
+damn, we're DONE for.  We ain't ever going to get outa
+here."
+
+"Done for?" murmured the other, looking about stupidly. 
+"Done for, that's the word.  Done for?  Yes, I guess we're
+done for."
+
+"What are we going to do NOW?" exclaimed Marcus,
+sharply, after a while.
+
+"Well, let's--let's be moving along--somewhere."
+
+"WHERE, I'd like to know?  What's the good of moving
+on?"
+
+"What's the good of stopping here?"
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Lord, it's hot," said the dentist, finally, wiping his
+forehead with the back of his hand.  Marcus ground his
+teeth.
+
+"Done for," he muttered; "done for."
+
+"I never WAS so thirsty," continued McTeague.  "I'm that
+dry I can hear my tongue rubbing against the roof of my
+mouth."
+
+"Well, we can't stop here," said Marcus, finally; "we got to
+go somewhere.  We'll try and get back, but it ain't no
+manner of use.  Anything we want to take along with us from
+the mule?  We can----"
+
+Suddenly he paused.  In an instant the eyes of the two
+doomed men had met as the same thought simultaneously rose
+in their minds.  The canvas sack with its five thousand
+dollars was still tied to the horn of the saddle.
+
+Marcus had emptied his revolver at the mule, and though he
+still wore his cartridge belt, he was for the moment as
+unarmed as McTeague.
+
+"I guess," began McTeague coming forward a step, "I guess,
+even if we are done for, I'll take--some of my truck along."
+
+"Hold on," exclaimed Marcus, with rising aggressiveness. 
+"Let's talk about that.  I ain't so sure about who
+that--who that money belongs to."
+
+"Well, I AM, you see," growled the dentist.
+
+The old enmity between the two men, their ancient hate, was
+flaming up again.
+
+"Don't try an' load that gun either," cried McTeague, fixing
+Marcus with his little eyes.
+
+"Then don't lay your finger on that sack," shouted the
+other. "You're my prisoner, do you understand?  You'll do as
+I say."  Marcus had drawn the handcuffs from his pocket, and
+stood ready with his revolver held as a club.  "You
+soldiered me out of that money once, and played me for a
+sucker, an' it's my turn now. Don't you lay your finger on
+that sack."
+
+Marcus barred McTeague's way, white with passion.  McTeague
+did not answer.  His eyes drew to two fine, twinkling
+points, and his enormous hands knotted themselves into
+fists, hard as wooden mallets.  He moved a step nearer to
+Marcus, then another.
+
+Suddenly the men grappled, and in another instant were
+rolling and struggling upon the hot white ground.  McTeague
+thrust Marcus backward until he tripped and fell over the
+body of the dead mule.  The little bird cage broke from the
+saddle with the violence of their fall, and rolled out upon
+the ground, the flour-bags slipping from it.  McTeague tore
+the revolver from Marcus's grip and struck out with it
+blindly.  Clouds of alkali dust, fine and pungent, enveloped
+the two fighting men, all but strangling them.
+
+McTeague did not know how he killed his enemy, but all at
+once Marcus grew still beneath his blows.  Then there was a
+sudden last return of energy.  McTeague's right wrist was
+caught, something licked upon it, then the struggling body
+fell limp and motionless with a long breath.
+
+As McTeague rose to his feet, he felt a pull at his right
+wrist; something held it fast.  Looking down, he saw that
+Marcus in that last struggle had found strength to handcuff
+their wrists together.  Marcus was dead now; McTeague was
+locked to the body.  All about him, vast interminable,
+stretched the measureless leagues of Death Valley.
+
+McTeague remained stupidly looking around him, now at the
+distant horizon, now at the ground, now at the half-dead
+canary chittering feebly in its little gilt prison.
+
+
+The End of Project Gutenberg etext of McTeague by Norris
+
+
+
+
+
+