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
int