“Well, never mind that.  You know I’m not trying to make small of you.  But never mind that.  Did you get a place?”

“Give me my money,” exclaimed McTeague, jumping up briskly.  There was an activity, a positive nimbleness about the huge blond giant that had never been his before; also his stupidity, the sluggishness of his brain, seemed to be unusually stimulated.

“Give me my money, the money I gave you as I was going away.”

“I can’t,” exclaimed Trina.  “I paid the grocer’s bill with it while you were gone.”

“Don’t believe you.”

“Truly, truly, Mac.  Do you think I’d lie to you?  Do you think I’d lower myself to do that?”

“Well, the next time I earn any money I’ll keep it myself.”

“But tell me, Mac, did you get a place?”

McTeague turned his back on her.

“Tell me, Mac, please, did you?”

The dentist jumped up and thrust his face close to hers, his heavy jaw protruding, his little eyes twinkling meanly.

“No,” he shouted.  “No, no, no.  Do you hear?  No.”

Trina cowered before him.  Then suddenly she began to sob aloud, weeping partly at his strange brutality, partly at the disappointment of his failure to find employment.

McTeague cast a contemptuous glance about him, a glance that embraced the dingy, cheerless room, the rain streaming down the panes of the one window, and the figure of his weeping wife.

“Oh, ain’t this all fine?” he exclaimed.  “Ain’t it lovely?”

“It’s not my fault,” sobbed Trina.

“It is too,” vociferated McTeague.  “It is too.  We could live like Christians and decent people if you wanted to.  You got more’n five thousand dollars, and you’re so damned stingy that you’d rather live in a rat hole—­and make me live there too—­before you’d part with a nickel of it.  I tell you I’m sick and tired of the whole business.”

An allusion to her lottery money never failed to rouse Trina.

“And I’ll tell you this much too,” she cried, winking back the tears.  “Now that you’re out of a job, we can’t afford even to live in your rat hole, as you call it.  We’ve got to find a cheaper place than this even.”

“What!” exclaimed the dentist, purple with rage.  “What, get into a worse hole in the wall than this?  Well, we’ll see if we will.  We’ll just see about that.  You’re going to do just as I tell you after this, Trina McTeague,” and once more he thrust his face close to hers.

“I know what’s the matter,” cried Trina, with a half sob; “I know, I can smell it on your breath.  You’ve been drinking whiskey.”

“Yes, I’ve been drinking whiskey,” retorted her husband.  “I’ve been drinking whiskey.  Have you got anything to say about it?  Ah, yes, you’re right, I’ve been drinking whiskey.  What have you got to say about my drinking whiskey?  Let’s hear it.”