But almost immediately after drinking his lemonade Owgooste was seized with a sudden restlessness.  He twisted and wriggled in his seat, swinging his legs violently, looking about him with eyes full of a vague distress.  At length, just as the musicians were returning, he stood up and whispered energetically in his mother’s ear.  Mrs. Sieppe was exasperated at once.

“No, no,” she cried, reseating him brusquely.

The performance was resumed.  A lightning artist appeared, drawing caricatures and portraits with incredible swiftness.  He even went so far as to ask for subjects from the audience, and the names of prominent men were shouted to him from the gallery.  He drew portraits of the President, of Grant, of Washington, of Napoleon Bonaparte, of Bismarck, of Garibaldi, of P. T. Barnum.

And so the evening passed.  The hall grew very hot, and the smoke of innumerable cigars made the eyes smart.  A thick blue mist hung low over the heads of the audience.  The air was full of varied smells—­the smell of stale cigars, of flat beer, of orange peel, of gas, of sachet powders, and of cheap perfumery.

One “artist” after another came upon the stage.  McTeague’s attention never wandered for a minute.  Trina and her mother enjoyed themselves hugely.  At every moment they made comments to one another, their eyes never leaving the stage.

“Ain’t dot fool joost too funny?”

“That’s a pretty song.  Don’t you like that kind of a song?”

“Wonderful!  It’s wonderful!  Yes, yes, wonderful!  That’s the word.”

Owgooste, however, lost interest.  He stood up in his place, his back to the stage, chewing a piece of orange peel and watching a little girl in her father’s lap across the aisle, his eyes fixed in a glassy, ox-like stare.  But he was uneasy.  He danced from one foot to the other, and at intervals appealed in hoarse whispers to his mother, who disdained an answer.

“Ma, say, ma-ah,” he whined, abstractedly chewing his orange peel, staring at the little girl.

“Ma-ah, say, ma.”  At times his monotonous plaint reached his mother’s consciousness.  She suddenly realized what this was that was annoying her.

“Owgooste, will you sit down?” She caught him up all at once, and jammed him down into his place.  “Be quiet, den; loog; listun at der yunge girls.”

Three young women and a young man who played a zither occupied the stage.  They were dressed in Tyrolese costume; they were yodlers, and sang in German about “mountain tops” and “bold hunters” and the like.  The yodling chorus was a marvel of flute-like modulations.  The girls were really pretty, and were not made up in the least.  Their “turn” had a great success.  Mrs. Sieppe was entranced.  Instantly she remembered her girlhood and her native Swiss village.

“Ach, dot is heavunly; joost like der old country.  Mein gran’mutter used to be one of der mos’ famous yodlers.  When I was leedle, I haf seen dem joost like dat.”