Marcus Schouler still occupied his old room on the floor above the McTeagues.  They saw but little of him, however.  At long intervals the dentist or his wife met him on the stairs of the flat.  Sometimes he would stop and talk with Trina, inquiring after the Sieppes, asking her if Mr. Sieppe had yet heard of any one with whom he, Marcus, could “go in with on a ranch.”  McTeague, Marcus merely nodded to.  Never had the quarrel between the two men been completely patched up.  It did not seem possible to the dentist now that Marcus had ever been his “pal,” that they had ever taken long walks together.  He was sorry that he had treated Marcus gratis for an ulcerated tooth, while Marcus daily recalled the fact that he had given up his “girl” to his friend—­the girl who had won a fortune—­as the great mistake of his life.  Only once since the wedding had he called upon Trina, at a time when he knew McTeague would be out.  Trina had shown him through the rooms and had told him, innocently enough, how gay was their life there.  Marcus had come away fairly sick with envy; his rancor against the dentist—­and against himself, for that matter—­knew no bounds.  “And you might ‘a’ had it all yourself, Marcus Schouler,” he muttered to himself on the stairs.  “You mushhead, you damn fool!”

Meanwhile, Marcus was becoming involved in the politics of his ward.  As secretary of the Polk Street Improvement Club—­which soon developed into quite an affair and began to assume the proportions of a Republican political machine—­he found he could make a little, a very little more than enough to live on.  At once he had given up his position as Old Grannis’s assistant in the dog hospital.  Marcus felt that he needed a wider sphere.  He had his eye upon a place connected with the city pound.  When the great railroad strike occurred, he promptly got himself engaged as deputy-sheriff, and spent a memorable week in Sacramento, where he involved himself in more than one terrible melee with the strikers.  Marcus had that quickness of temper and passionate readiness to take offence which passes among his class for bravery.  But whatever were his motives, his promptness to face danger could not for a moment be doubted.  After the strike he returned to Polk Street, and throwing himself into the Improvement Club, heart, soul, and body, soon became one of its ruling spirits.  In a certain local election, where a huge paving contract was at stake, the club made itself felt in the ward, and Marcus so managed his cards and pulled his wires that, at the end of the matter, he found himself some four hundred dollars to the good.