place where people were
chained to the wall, in the dark, and fed on bread and water.

"Oh, Mac, you've got to quit," she wailed. "You can't go on. They can
make you stop. Oh, why didn't you go to a dental college? Why didn't you
find out that you had to have a college degree? And now we're paupers,
beggars. We've got to leave here--leave this flat where I've been--where
WE'VE been so happy, and sell all the pretty things; sell the pictures
and the melodeon, and--Oh, it's too dreadful!"

"Huh? Huh? What? What?" exclaimed the dentist, bewildered. "I ain't
going to quit for just a piece of paper. Let them put me out. I'll show
them. They--they can't make small of me."

"Oh, that's all very fine to talk that way, but you'll have to quit."

"Well, we ain't paupers," McTeague suddenly exclaimed, an idea entering
his mind. "We've got our money yet. You've got your five thousand
dollars and the money you've been saving up. People ain't paupers when
they've got over five thousand dollars."

"What do you mean, Mac?" cried Trina, apprehensively.

"Well, we can live on THAT money until--until--until--" he broke off
with an uncertain movement of his shoulders, looking about him stupidly.

"Until WHEN?" cried Trina. "There ain't ever going to be any 'until.'
We've got the INTEREST of that five thousand and we've got what Uncle
Oelbermann gives me, a little over thirty dollars a month, and that's
all we've got. You'll have to find something else to do."

"What will I find to do?"

What, indeed? McTeague was over thirty now, sluggish and slow-witted at
best. What new trade could he learn at this age?

Little by little Trina made the dentist understand the calamity that had
befallen them, and McTeague at last began cancelling his appointments.
Trina gave it out that he was sick.

"Not a soul need know what's happened to us," she said to her husband.

But it was only by slow degrees that McTeague abandoned his profession.
Every morning after breakfast he would go into his "Parlors" as usual
and potter about his instruments, his dental engine, and his washstand
in the corner behind his screen where he made his moulds. Now he would
sharpen a "hoe" excavator, now he would busy himself for a whole hour
making "mats" and "cylinders." Then he would look over his slate where
he kept a record of his appointments.

One day Trina softly opened the door of the "Parlors" and came in from
the sitting-room. She had not heard McTeague mo