Trina shot a glance at her husband.  McTeague began to glower again.

“What do you say?” said the Other Dentist.

“I guess not,” growled McTeague

“What do you say to ten dollars?”

“Ten dollars!” cried Trina, her chin in the air.

“Well, what figure do you put on it?”

Trina was about to answer when she was interrupted by McTeague.

“You go out of here.”

“Hey?  What?”

“You go out of here.”

The other retreated toward the door.

“You can’t make small of me.  Go out of here.”

McTeague came forward a step, his great red fist clenching.  The young man fled.  But half way down the stairs he paused long enough to call back: 

“You don’t want to trade anything for a diploma, do you?”

McTeague and his wife exchanged looks.

“How did he know?” exclaimed Trina, sharply.  They had invented and spread the fiction that McTeague was merely retiring from business, without assigning any reason.  But evidently every one knew the real cause.  The humiliation was complete now.  Old Miss Baker confirmed their suspicions on this point the next day.  The little retired dressmaker came down and wept with Trina over her misfortune, and did what she could to encourage her.  But she too knew that McTeague had been forbidden by the authorities from practising.  Marcus had evidently left them no loophole of escape.

“It’s just like cutting off your husband’s hands, my dear,” said Miss
Baker.  “And you two were so happy.  When I first saw you together I said,
‘What a pair!’”

Old Grannis also called during this period of the breaking up of the McTeague household.

“Dreadful, dreadful,” murmured the old Englishman, his hand going tremulously to his chin.  “It seems unjust; it does.  But Mr. Schouler could not have set them on to do it.  I can’t quite believe it of him.”

“Of Marcus!” cried Trina.  “Hoh!  Why, he threw his knife at Mac one time, and another time he bit him, actually bit him with his teeth, while they were wrestling just for fun.  Marcus would do anything to injure Mac.”

“Dear, dear,” returned Old Grannis, genuinely pained.  “I had always believed Schouler to be such a good fellow.”

“That’s because you’re so good yourself, Mr. Grannis,” responded Trina.

“I tell you what, Doc,” declared Heise the harness-maker, shaking his finger impressively at the dentist, “you must fight it; you must appeal to the courts; you’ve been practising too long to be debarred now.  The statute of limitations, you know.”

“No, no,” Trina had exclaimed, when the dentist had repeated this advice to her.  “No, no, don’t go near the law courts.  I know them.  The lawyers take all your money, and you lose your case.  We’re bad off as it is, without lawing about it.”