and
washed the slate clean. "All gone, all gone," she said.

"All gone," echoed the dentist. There was a silence. Then McTeague
heaved himself up to his full six feet two, his face purpling, his
enormous mallet-like fists raised over his head. His massive jaw
protruded more than ever, while his teeth clicked and grated together;
then he growled:

"If ever I meet Marcus Schouler--" he broke off abruptly, the white of
his eyes growing suddenly pink.

"Oh, if ever you DO," exclaimed Trina, catching her breath.

CHAPTER 14

"Well, what do you think?" said Trina.

She and McTeague stood in a tiny room at the back of the flat and on
its very top floor. The room was whitewashed. It contained a bed,
three cane-seated chairs, and a wooden washstand with its washbowl and
pitcher. From its single uncurtained window one looked down into the
flat's dirty back yard and upon the roofs of the hovels that bordered
the alley in the rear. There was a rag carpet on the floor. In place
of a closet some dozen wooden pegs were affixed to the wall over the
washstand. There was a smell of cheap soap and of ancient hair-oil in
the air.

"That's a single bed," said Trina, "but the landlady says she'll put in
a double one for us. You see----"

"I ain't going to live here," growled McTeague.

"Well, you've got to live somewhere," said Trina, impatiently. "We've
looked Polk Street over, and this is the only thing we can afford."

"Afford, afford," muttered the dentist. "You with your five thousand
dollars, and the two or three hundred you got saved up, talking about
'afford.' You make me sick."

"Now, Mac," exclaimed Trina, deliberately, sitting down in one of the
cane-seated chairs; "now, Mac, let's have this thing----"

"Well, I don't figure on living in one room," growled the dentist,
sullenly. "Let's live decently until we can get a fresh start. We've got
the money."

"Who's got the money?"

"WE'VE got it."

"We!"

"Well, it's all in the family. What's yours is mine, and what's mine is
yours, ain't it?"

"No, it's not; no, it's not," cried Trina, vehemently. "It's all mine,
mine. There's not a penny of it belongs to anybody else. I don't like to
have to talk this way to you, but you just make me. We're not going to
touch a penny of my five thousand nor a penny of that little money I
managed to save--that seventy-five."

"That TWO hundred, you mean."

"That SEVENTY-FIVE. We're just going to live on the interest o