There was a great coming and going between the kitchen and the sitting-room.  Trina, who was allowed to do nothing, sat in the bay window and fretted, calling to her mother from time to time: 

“The napkins are in the right-hand drawer of the pantry.”

“Yes, yes, I got um.  Where do you geep der zoup blates?”

“The soup plates are here already.”

“Say, Cousin Trina, is there a corkscrew?  What is home without a corkscrew?”

“In the kitchen-table drawer, in the left-hand corner.”

“Are these the forks you want to use, Mrs. McTeague?”

“No, no, there’s some silver forks.  Mamma knows where.”

They were all very gay, laughing over their mistakes, getting in one another’s way, rushing into the sitting-room, their hands full of plates or knives or glasses, and darting out again after more.  Marcus and Mr. Sieppe took their coats off.  Old Grannis and Miss Baker passed each other in the hall in a constrained silence, her grenadine brushing against the elbow of his wrinkled frock coat.  Uncle Oelbermann superintended Heise opening the case of champagne with the gravity of a magistrate.  Owgooste was assigned the task of filling the new salt and pepper canisters of red and blue glass.

In a wonderfully short time everything was ready.  Marcus Schouler resumed his coat, wiping his forehead, and remarking: 

“I tell you, I’ve been doing chores for my board.”

“To der table!” commanded Mr. Sieppe.

The company sat down with a great clatter, Trina at the foot, the dentist at the head, the others arranged themselves in haphazard fashion.  But it happened that Marcus Schouler crowded into the seat beside Selina, towards which Old Grannis was directing himself.  There was but one other chair vacant, and that at the side of Miss Baker.  Old Grannis hesitated, putting his hand to his chin.  However, there was no escape.  In great trepidation he sat down beside the retired dressmaker.  Neither of them spoke.  Old Grannis dared not move, but sat rigid, his eyes riveted on his empty soup plate.

All at once there was a report like a pistol.  The men started in their places.  Mrs. Sieppe uttered a muffled shriek.  The waiter from the cheap restaurant, hired as Maria’s assistant, rose from a bending posture, a champagne bottle frothing in his hand; he was grinning from ear to ear.

“Don’t get scairt,” he said, reassuringly, “it ain’t loaded.”

When all their glasses had been filled, Marcus proposed the health of the bride, “standing up.”  The guests rose and drank.  Hardly one of them had ever tasted champagne before.  The moment’s silence after the toast was broken by McTeague exclaiming with a long breath of satisfaction:  “That’s the best beer I ever drank.”

There was a roar of laughter.  Especially was Marcus tickled over the dentist’s blunder; he went off in a very spasm of mirth, banging the table with his fist, laughing until his eyes watered.  All through the meal he kept breaking out into cackling imitations of McTeague’s words:  “That’s the best beer I ever drank.  Oh, Lord, ain’t that a break!”