t and throbbed. The palms of his
hands were dry. He dozed and woke, and walked aimlessly about the dark
room, bruising himself against the three chairs drawn up "at attention"
under the steel engraving, and stumbling over the stone pug dog that sat
in front of the little stove.

Besides this, the jealousy of Marcus Schouler harassed him. Maria
Macapa, coming into his "Parlor" to ask for junk, found him flung at
length upon the bed-lounge, gnawing at his fingers in an excess of
silent fury. At lunch that day Marcus had told him of an excursion that
was planned for the next Sunday afternoon. Mr. Sieppe, Trina's father,
belonged to a rifle club that was to hold a meet at Schuetzen Park
across the bay. All the Sieppes were going; there was to be a basket
picnic. Marcus, as usual, was invited to be one of the party. McTeague
was in agony. It was his first experience, and he suffered all the worse
for it because he was totally unprepared. What miserable complication
was this in which he found himself involved? It seemed so simple to
him since he loved Trina to take her straight to himself, stopping at
nothing, asking no questions, to have her, and by main strength to carry
her far away somewhere, he did not know exactly where, to some vague
country, some undiscovered place where every day was Sunday.

"Got any junk?"

"Huh? What? What is it?" exclaimed McTeague, suddenly rousing up from
the lounge. Often Maria did very well in the "Dental Parlors." McTeague
was continually breaking things which he was too stupid to have mended;
for him anything that was broken was lost. Now it was a cuspidor, now a
fire-shovel for the little stove, now a China shaving mug.

"Got any junk?"

"I don't know--I don't remember," muttered McTeague. Maria roamed about
the room, McTeague following her in his huge stockinged feet. All at
once she pounced upon a sheaf of old hand instruments in a coverless
cigar-box, pluggers, hard bits, and excavators. Maria had long coveted
such a find in McTeague's "Parlor," knowing it should be somewhere
about. The instruments were of the finest tempered steel and really
valuable.

"Say, Doctor, I can have these, can't I?" exclaimed Maria. "You got no
more use for them." McTeague was not at all sure of this. There were
many in the sheaf that might be repaired, reshaped.

"No, no," he said, wagging his head. But Maria Macapa, knowing with
whom she had to deal, at once let loose a torrent of words. She made