easure in annoying and exasperating
Trina, even in abusing and hurting her.

It had begun on the evening of Thanksgiving Day, when Heise had taken
McTeague out to dinner with him. The dentist on this occasion had
drunk very freely. He and Heise had returned to Polk Street towards ten
o'clock, and Heise at once suggested a couple of drinks at Frenna's.

"All right, all right," said McTeague. "Drinks, that's the word. I'll go
home and get some money and meet you at Joe's."

Trina was awakened by her husband pinching her arm.

"Oh, Mac," she cried, jumping up in bed with a little scream, "how you
hurt! Oh, that hurt me dreadfully."

"Give me a little money," answered the dentist, grinning, and pinching
her again.

"I haven't a cent. There's not a--oh, MAC, will you stop? I won't have
you pinch me that way."

"Hurry up," answered her husband, calmly, nipping the flesh of her
shoulder between his thumb and finger. "Heise's waiting for me." Trina
wrenched from him with a sharp intake of breath, frowning with pain, and
caressing her shoulder.

"Mac, you've no idea how that hurts. Mac, STOP!"

"Give me some money, then."

In the end Trina had to comply. She gave him half a dollar from her
dress pocket, protesting that it was the only piece of money she had.

"One more, just for luck," said McTeague, pinching her again; "and
another."

"How can you--how CAN you hurt a woman so!" exclaimed Trina, beginning
to cry with the pain.

"Ah, now, CRY," retorted the dentist. "That's right, CRY. I never saw
such a little fool." He went out, slamming the door in disgust.

But McTeague never became a drunkard in the generally received sense of
the term. He did not drink to excess more than two or three times in a
month, and never upon any occasion did he become maudlin or staggering.
Perhaps his nerves were naturally too dull to admit of any excitation;
perhaps he did not really care for the whiskey, and only drank because
Heise and the other men at Frenna's did. Trina could often reproach
him with drinking too much; she never could say that he was drunk. The
alcohol had its effect for all that. It roused the man, or rather the
brute in the man, and now not only roused it, but goaded it to evil.
McTeague's nature changed. It was not only the alcohol, it was idleness
and a general throwing off of the good influence his wife had had over
him in the days of their prosperity. McTeague disliked Trina. She was a
perpetual irritat