nasty little old miser.  You’re worse than old Zerkow, always nagging about money, money, and you got five thousand dollars.  You got more, an’ you live in that stinking hole of a room, and you won’t drink any decent beer.  I ain’t going to stand it much longer.  She knew it was going to rain.  She knew it.  Didn’t I tell her?  And she drives me out of my own home in the rain, for me to get money for her; more money, and she takes it.  She took that money from me that I earned.  ’Twasn’t hers; it was mine, I earned it—­and not a nickel for car fare.  She don’t care if I get wet and get a cold and die.  No, she don’t, as long as she’s warm and’s got her money.”  He became more and more indignant at the picture he made of himself.  “I ain’t going to stand it much longer,” he repeated.

“Why, hello, Doc.  Is that you?” exclaimed Heise, opening the door of the harness shop behind him.  “Come in out of the wet.  Why, you’re soaked through,” he added as he and McTeague came back into the shop, that reeked of oiled leather.  “Didn’t you have any umbrella?  Ought to have taken a car.”

“I guess so—­I guess so,” murmured the dentist, confused.  His teeth were chattering.

“You’re going to catch your death-a-cold,” exclaimed Heise.  “Tell you what,” he said, reaching for his hat, “come in next door to Frenna’s and have something to warm you up.  I’ll get the old lady to mind the shop.”  He called Mrs. Heise down from the floor above and took McTeague into Joe Frenna’s saloon, which was two doors above his harness shop.

“Whiskey and gum twice, Joe,” said he to the barkeeper as he and the dentist approached the bar.

“Huh?  What?” said McTeague.  “Whiskey?  No, I can’t drink whiskey.  It kind of disagrees with me.”

“Oh, the hell!” returned Heise, easily.  “Take it as medicine.  You’ll get your death-a-cold if you stand round soaked like that.  Two whiskey and gum, Joe.”

McTeague emptied the pony glass at a single enormous gulp.

“That’s the way,” said Heise, approvingly.  “Do you good.”  He drank his off slowly.

“I’d—­I’d ask you to have a drink with me, Heise,” said the dentist, who had an indistinct idea of the amenities of the barroom, “only,” he added shamefacedly, “only—­you see, I don’t believe I got any change.”  His anger against Trina, heated by the whiskey he had drank, flamed up afresh.  What a humiliating position for Trina to place him in, not to leave him the price of a drink with a friend, she who had five thousand dollars!

“Sha!  That’s all right, Doc,” returned Heise, nibbling on a grain of coffee.  “Want another?  Hey?  This my treat.  Two more of the same, Joe.”

McTeague hesitated.  It was lamentably true that whiskey did not agree with him; he knew it well enough.  However, by this time he felt very comfortably warm at the pit of his stomach.  The blood was beginning to circulate in his chilled finger-tips and in his soggy, wet feet.  He had had a hard day of it; in fact, the last week, the last month, the last three or four months, had been hard.  He deserved a little consolation.  Nor could Trina object to this.  It wasn’t costing a cent.  He drank again with Heise.