It was their tete-a-tete.  Instinctively they felt each other’s presence, felt each other’s thought coming to them through the thin partition.  It was charming; they were perfectly happy.  There in the stillness that settled over the flat in the half hour after midnight the two old people “kept company,” enjoying after their fashion their little romance that had come so late into the lives of each.

On the way to her room in the garret Maria Macapa paused under the single gas-jet that burned at the top of the well of the staircase; she assured herself that she was alone, and then drew from her pocket one of McTeague’s “tapes” of non-cohesive gold.  It was the most valuable steal she had ever yet made in the dentist’s “Parlors.”  She told herself that it was worth at least a couple of dollars.  Suddenly an idea occurred to her, and she went hastily to a window at the end of the hall, and, shading her face with both hands, looked down into the little alley just back of the flat.  On some nights Zerkow, the red-headed Polish Jew, sat up late, taking account of the week’s ragpicking.  There was a dim light in his window now.

Maria went to her room, threw a shawl around her head, and descended into the little back yard of the flat by the back stairs.  As she let herself out of the back gate into the alley, Alexander, Marcus’s Irish setter, woke suddenly with a gruff bark.  The collie who lived on the other side of the fence, in the back yard of the branch post-office, answered with a snarl.  Then in an instant the endless feud between the two dogs was resumed.  They dragged their respective kennels to the fence, and through the cracks raged at each other in a frenzy of hate; their teeth snapped and gleamed; the hackles on their backs rose and stiffened.  Their hideous clamor could have been heard for blocks around.  What a massacre should the two ever meet!

Meanwhile, Maria was knocking at Zerkow’s miserable hovel.

“Who is it?  Who is it?” cried the rag-picker from within, in his hoarse voice, that was half whisper, starting nervously, and sweeping a handful of silver into his drawer.

“It’s me, Maria Macapa;” then in a lower voice, and as if speaking to herself, “had a flying squirrel an’ let him go.”

“Ah, Maria,” cried Zerkow, obsequiously opening the door.  “Come in, come in, my girl; you’re always welcome, even as late as this.  No junk, hey?  But you’re welcome for all that.  You’ll have a drink, won’t you?” He led her into his back room and got down the whiskey bottle and the broken red tumbler.

After the two had drunk together Maria produced the gold “tape.”  Zerkow’s eyes glittered on the instant.  The sight of gold invariably sent a qualm all through him; try as he would, he could not repress it.  His fingers trembled and clawed at his mouth; his breath grew short.

“Ah, ah, ah!” he exclaimed, “give it here, give it here; give it to me, Maria.  That’s a good girl, come give it to me.”