us 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