What a wonderful supper that was!  There was oyster soup; there were sea bass and barracuda; there was a gigantic roast goose stuffed with chestnuts; there were egg-plant and sweet potatoes—­Miss Baker called them “yams.”  There was calf’s head in oil, over which Mr. Sieppe went into ecstasies; there was lobster salad; there were rice pudding, and strawberry ice cream, and wine jelly, and stewed prunes, and cocoanuts, and mixed nuts, and raisins, and fruit, and tea, and coffee, and mineral waters, and lemonade.

For two hours the guests ate; their faces red, their elbows wide, the perspiration beading their foreheads.  All around the table one saw the same incessant movement of jaws and heard the same uninterrupted sound of chewing.  Three times Heise passed his plate for more roast goose.  Mr. Sieppe devoured the calf’s head with long breaths of contentment; McTeague ate for the sake of eating, without choice; everything within reach of his hands found its way into his enormous mouth.

There was but little conversation, and that only of the food; one exchanged opinions with one’s neighbor as to the soup, the egg-plant, or the stewed prunes.  Soon the room became very warm, a faint moisture appeared upon the windows, the air was heavy with the smell of cooked food.  At every moment Trina or Mrs. Sieppe urged some one of the company to have his or her plate refilled.  They were constantly employed in dishing potatoes or carving the goose or ladling gravy.  The hired waiter circled around the room, his limp napkin over his arm, his hands full of plates and dishes.  He was a great joker; he had names of his own for different articles of food, that sent gales of laughter around the table.  When he spoke of a bunch of parsley as “scenery,” Heise all but strangled himself over a mouthful of potato.  Out in the kitchen Maria Macapa did the work of three, her face scarlet, her sleeves rolled up; every now and then she uttered shrill but unintelligible outcries, supposedly addressed to the waiter.

“Uncle Oelbermann,” said Trina, “let me give you another helping of prunes.”

The Sieppes paid great deference to Uncle Oelbermann, as indeed did the whole company.  Even Marcus Schouler lowered his voice when he addressed him.  At the beginning of the meal he had nudged the harness-maker and had whispered behind his hand, nodding his head toward the wholesale toy dealer, “Got thirty thousand dollars in the bank; has, for a fact.”

“Don’t have much to say,” observed Heise.

“No, no.  That’s his way; never opens his face.”

As the evening wore on, the gas and two lamps were lit.  The company were still eating.  The men, gorged with food, had unbuttoned their vests.  McTeague’s cheeks were distended, his eyes wide, his huge, salient jaw moved with a machine-like regularity; at intervals he drew a series of short breaths through his nose.  Mrs. Sieppe wiped her forehead with her napkin.