“Get up here to the stove and warm yourself,” urged Heise, drawing up a couple of chairs and cocking his feet upon the guard.  The two fell to talking while McTeague’s draggled coat and trousers smoked.

“What a dirty turn that was that Marcus Schouler did you!” said Heise, wagging his head.  “You ought to have fought that, Doc, sure.  You’d been practising too long.”  They discussed this question some ten or fifteen minutes and then Heise rose.

“Well, this ain’t earning any money.  I got to get back to the shop.”  McTeague got up as well, and the pair started for the door.  Just as they were going out Ryer met them.

“Hello, hello,” he cried.  “Lord, what a wet day!  You two are going the wrong way.  You’re going to have a drink with me.  Three whiskey punches, Joe.”

“No, no,” answered McTeague, shaking his head.  “I’m going back home.  I’ve had two glasses of whiskey already.”

“Sha!” cried Heise, catching his arm.  “A strapping big chap like you ain’t afraid of a little whiskey.”

“Well, I—­I—­I got to go right afterwards,” protested McTeague.

About half an hour after the dentist had left to go down town, Maria Macapa had come in to see Trina.  Occasionally Maria dropped in on Trina in this fashion and spent an hour or so chatting with her while she worked.  At first Trina had been inclined to resent these intrusions of the Mexican woman, but of late she had begun to tolerate them.  Her day was long and cheerless at the best, and there was no one to talk to.  Trina even fancied that old Miss Baker had come to be less cordial since their misfortune.  Maria retailed to her all the gossip of the flat and the neighborhood, and, which was much more interesting, told her of her troubles with Zerkow.

Trina said to herself that Maria was common and vulgar, but one had to have some diversion, and Trina could talk and listen without interrupting her work.  On this particular occasion Maria was much excited over Zerkow’s demeanor of late.

“He’s gettun worse an’ worse,” she informed Trina as she sat on the edge of the bed, her chin in her hand.  “He says he knows I got the dishes and am hidun them from him.  The other day I thought he’d gone off with his wagon, and I was doin’ a bit of ir’ning, an’ by an’ by all of a sudden I saw him peeping at me through the crack of the door.  I never let on that I saw him, and, honest, he stayed there over two hours, watchun everything I did.  I could just feel his eyes on the back of my neck all the time.  Last Sunday he took down part of the wall, ’cause he said he’d seen me making figures on it.  Well, I was, but it was just the wash list.  All the time he says he’ll kill me if I don’t tell.”

“Why, what do you stay with him for?” exclaimed Trina.  “I’d be deathly ’fraid of a man like that; and he did take a knife to you once.”

“Hoh!  He won’t kill me, never fear.  If he’d kill me he’d never know where the dishes were; that’s what he thinks.”