McTeague: A Story of San Francisco

days 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 her

ld have been more delicious. They had but to close the s

her hair blown about her face and into the corners of her lips, her mother's net reticule stuffed

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;

hat big gold tooth for a sign. It costs too much; I can't get it yet a while. There's

rina and the five thousand dollars could not

s 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 bankr

as 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 oldtime miner's idea of wealth easily gained and quickly

able 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

s right," the dentist would answer

ss discussion in the Sieppe family. The savings bank would allow only three

ested, remembering the rich relative who h

cried. In the end an agreement was made. The money was inves

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 cent

th a sharp jack-knife, the only instrument she used. Trina was very proud

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 umb

manik

now-Noah and his wife, and

d peoples of manikins while she was fashioning one family. Everything else, however, she made-the ark itself, all windows and no door; the box

d dollars, and Trina's whittling, made a respectable little sum taken altogether. Trina decl

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

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

, Mac, do you truly, rea

gasping, and wagging his head, bes

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'v

make the

stood on end, putting her fingers in his eyes, or stretching his ears out straight, and watching the effect

o 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. Invariab

Mac, DON'T; yo

ly. 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 monosylla

place at the table in the coffee-j

id the dentist, "

ing himself to tomato catsup. There was a silenc

"when you going to pay m

was ast

n't-do I owe you

, doggedly. "I paid for you and Trina that da

s so, that's so. I-you ought to have told me be

arcus, sullenly. "But I nee

ou broke?" inq

eeping at the hospital that night, either,

mean-should I ha

uldn't you?" flashed out Marcus. "You 'a' ha

ling in his pockets. "I don't want you should be out an

ted Marcus in a sudden rage, throwin

rable. How had he

take it, Mark," he said

he other through his clenched teeth, white with pa

emonstrated McTeague. "You've got a grouch a

le. "That's all right. I've been played for a sucker long enough, that's all. I've

aper, 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 scattere

is 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 dr

ions 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 th

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 o

ts, 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 authoritie

ce; you'll get jugged." But this observation of the ha

the other's face. "Yes, I'd go to jail; but because I-I am crushed b

here, Mister Schouler," sai

Marcus, subsiding into a growl and

lo,

is chair, shrugging first one shoulder and then another. Quarrelsome at all times, the heat of the previous dis

, and settled himself comfortably in his chair. The smoke of his cheap tobacco drifted into the fac

t pipe! If you've got to smoke rope like that, smoke it

r!" observed Heis

rom his mouth, and stared blankly at Marcus; his lips moved, but he said

g 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 compa

e been soldiered out of

pipe from his mouth a second time, and stared at

"I'd have part of that money. It's my due-it's

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 y

grumbled Heise. "You don'

ole away my girl's affections, and now that he's rich and prosperous, and has got five thousand dollars that I might have had, h

nswered McTeague. "You're

at money?" cried Ma

is head. "No, you d

, 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

h fury-"and don't you sit at my table in the restaurant again. I'm sorry I ever lowered myself to keep company wi

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

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 q

cold and deadly wind. Death had stooped there for an instant, had stooped and past, leaving a tr

The tension of that all but fatal instant sn

have kni

ow es

f a man do y

fault he ain'

e him up

been the greatest

touch you

-no

What treachery! A re

the back. If that's the kind of

the knife fr

fellow won't come round for it in a hurry; goodsized b

he life out of any m

t for?" stammered McTeague.

, uncanny "greaser" style. It was inexplicable. McTeague sat down again, looking stupidly about on the floor. In a corner of th

behind the original affront, suddenly blazed

xclaimed, suddenly. "I'll show Ma

nd clapped

standing between him and the door,

enna, catching the dentist by

pipe," answ

e attempt on his life, was beyond his solution; but t

him," he

na and the harness-maker aside, and strode out at the door

a locomotive," he muttere

. 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 lo

g-box that stood in the hallway just outside his door. Puzzled, he stepped o

s room had packing-cases been left for him in this fashion. No mistake was possible. There were his name and

ior. 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,

nrealized dream of his life; and it was French gilt, too, not the cheap German gilt that was no

" exclaimed McTeague under his breath, "a

! 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 h

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

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

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

l fixed on the great tooth. All at once he heard Marcus Schouler's foot on the stairs; he started up wi

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 too

know how many things he's stolen? It's come to stealing from me,

the ceiling, in the direct

to bed

ow-curtains up so that he could see the tooth the last thing befo

w 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, w