She took her place in the operating chair.  McTeague began the filling.  There was a long silence.  It was impossible for McTeague to work and talk at the same time.

He was just burnishing the last “mat” in Miss Baker’s tooth, when the door of the “Parlors” opened, jangling the bell which he had hung over it, and which was absolutely unnecessary.  McTeague turned, one foot on the pedal of his dental engine, the corundum disk whirling between his fingers.

It was Marcus Schouler who came in, ushering a young girl of about twenty.

“Hello, Mac,” exclaimed Marcus; “busy?  Brought my cousin round about that broken tooth.”

McTeague nodded his head gravely.

“In a minute,” he answered.

Marcus and his cousin Trina sat down in the rigid chairs underneath the steel engraving of the Court of Lorenzo de’ Medici.  They began talking in low tones.  The girl looked about the room, noticing the stone pug dog, the rifle manufacturer’s calendar, the canary in its little gilt prison, and the tumbled blankets on the unmade bed-lounge against the wall.  Marcus began telling her about McTeague.  “We’re pals,” he explained, just above a whisper.  “Ah, Mac’s all right, you bet.  Say, Trina, he’s the strongest duck you ever saw.  What do you suppose?  He can pull out your teeth with his fingers; yes, he can.  What do you think of that?  With his fingers, mind you; he can, for a fact.  Get on to the size of him, anyhow.  Ah, Mac’s all right!”

Maria Macapa had come into the room while he had been speaking.  She was making up McTeague’s bed.  Suddenly Marcus exclaimed under his breath:  “Now we’ll have some fun.  It’s the girl that takes care of the rooms.  She’s a greaser, and she’s queer in the head.  She ain’t regularly crazy, but I don’t know, she’s queer.  Y’ought to hear her go on about a gold dinner service she says her folks used to own.  Ask her what her name is and see what she’ll say.”  Trina shrank back, a little frightened.

“No, you ask,” she whispered.

“Ah, go on; what you ’fraid of?” urged Marcus.  Trina shook her head energetically, shutting her lips together.

“Well, listen here,” answered Marcus, nudging her; then raising his voice, he said: 

“How do, Maria?” Maria nodded to him over her shoulder as she bent over the lounge.

“Workun hard nowadays, Maria?”

“Pretty hard.”

“Didunt always have to work for your living, though, did you, when you ate offa gold dishes?” Maria didn’t answer, except by putting her chin in the air and shutting her eyes, as though to say she knew a long story about that if she had a mind to talk.  All Marcus’s efforts to draw her out on the subject were unavailing.  She only responded by movements of her head.

“Can’t always start her going,” Marcus told his cousin.

“What does she do, though, when you ask her about her name?”

“Oh, sure,” said Marcus, who had forgotten.  “Say, Maria, what’s your name?”