by Frank Norris
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.”
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br /> “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.”