ll 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 hegi