been to a dental
college, Mac? Didn't you ever go?" Trina would ask again and again.

"No, no," answered the dentist, "I never went. I learnt from the fellow
I was apprenticed to. I don' know anything about a dental college. Ain't
I got a right to do as I like?" he suddenly exclaimed.

"If you know your profession, isn't that enough?" cried Trina.

"Sure, sure," growled McTeague. "I ain't going to stop for them."

"You go right on," Trina said, "and I bet you won't hear another word
about it."

"Suppose I go round to the City Hall and see them," hazarded McTeague.

"No, no, don't you do it, Mac," exclaimed Trina. "Because, if Marcus has
done this just to scare you, they won't know anything about it there at
the City Hall; but they'll begin to ask you questions, and find out that
you never HAD graduated from a dental college, and you'd be just as bad
off as ever."

"Well, I ain't going to quit for just a piece of paper," declared the
dentist. The phrase stuck to him. All day long he went about their rooms
or continued at his work in the "Parlors," growling behind his thick
mustache: "I ain't going to quit for just a piece of paper. No, I ain't
going to quit for just a piece of paper. Sure not."

The days passed, a week went by, McTeague continued his work as usual.
They heard no more from the City Hall, but the suspense of the situation
was harrowing. Trina was actually sick with it. The terror of the thing
was ever at their elbows, going to bed with them, sitting down with them
at breakfast in the kitchen, keeping them company all through the day.
Trina dared not think of what would be their fate if the income derived
from McTeague's practice was suddenly taken from them. Then they would
have to fall back on the interest of her lottery money and the pittance
she derived from the manufacture of the Noah's ark animals, a little
over thirty dollars a month. No, no, it was not to be thought of. It
could not be that their means of livelihood was to be thus stricken from
them.

A fortnight went by. "I guess we're all right, Mac," Trina allowed
herself to say. "It looks as though we were all right. How are they
going to tell whether you're practising or not?"

That day a second and much more peremptory notice was served upon
McTeague by an official in person. Then suddenly Trina was seized with a
panic terror, unreasoned, instinctive. If McTeague persisted they would
both be sent to a prison, she was sure of it; a