One particular amusement they never wearied of.  The two would lean across the table towards each other, McTeague folding his arms under his breast.  Then Trina, resting on her elbows, would part his mustache-the great blond mustache of a viking—­with her two hands, pushing it up from his lips, causing his face to assume the appearance of a Greek mask.  She would curl it around either forefinger, drawing it to a fine end.  Then all at once McTeague would make a fearful snorting noise through his nose.  Invariably—­though she was expecting this, though it was part of the game—­Trina would jump with a stifled shriek.  McTeague would bellow with laughter till his eyes watered.  Then they would recommence upon the instant, Trina protesting with a nervous tremulousness: 

“Now—­now—­now, Mac, don’t; you scare me so.”

But these delicious tete-a-tetes with Trina were offset by a certain coolness that Marcus Schouler began to affect towards the dentist.  At first McTeague was unaware of it; but by this time even his slow wits began to perceive that his best friend—­his “pal”—­was not the same to him as formerly.  They continued to meet at lunch nearly every day but Friday at the car conductors’ coffee-joint.  But Marcus was sulky; there could be no doubt about that.  He avoided talking to McTeague, read the paper continually, answering the dentist’s timid efforts at conversation in gruff monosyllables.  Sometimes, even, he turned sideways to the table and talked at great length to Heise the harness-maker, whose table was next to theirs.  They took no more long walks together when Marcus went out to exercise the dogs.  Nor did Marcus ever again recur to his generosity in renouncing Trina.

One Tuesday, as McTeague took his place at the table in the coffee-joint, he found Marcus already there.

“Hello, Mark,” said the dentist, “you here already?”

“Hello,” returned the other, indifferently, helping himself to tomato catsup.  There was a silence.  After a long while Marcus suddenly looked up.

“Say, Mac,” he exclaimed, “when you going to pay me that money you owe me?”

McTeague was astonished.

“Huh?  What?  I don’t—­do I owe you any money, Mark?”

“Well, you owe me four bits,” returned Marcus, doggedly.  “I paid for you and Trina that day at the picnic, and you never gave it back.”

“Oh—­oh!” answered McTeague, in distress.  “That’s so, that’s so.  I—­you ought to have told me before.  Here’s your money, and I’m obliged to you.”

“It ain’t much,” observed Marcus, sullenly.  “But I need all I can get now-a-days.”

“Are you—­are you broke?” inquired McTeague.

“And I ain’t saying anything about your sleeping at the hospital that night, either,” muttered Marcus, as he pocketed the coin.

“Well—­well—­do you mean—­should I have paid for that?”

“Well, you’d ‘a’ had to sleep somewheres, wouldn’t you?” flashed out Marcus.  “You ‘a’ had to pay half a dollar for a bed at the flat.”