Thus the winter passed, a year went by, then two.  The little life of Polk Street, the life of small traders, drug clerks, grocers, stationers, plumbers, dentists, doctors, spirit-mediums, and the like, ran on monotonously in its accustomed grooves.  The first three years of their married life wrought little change in the fortunes of the McTeagues.  In the third summer the branch post-office was moved from the ground floor of the flat to a corner farther up the street in order to be near the cable line that ran mail cars.  Its place was taken by a German saloon, called a “Wein Stube,” in the face of the protests of every female lodger.  A few months later quite a little flurry of excitement ran through the street on the occasion of “The Polk Street Open Air Festival,” organized to celebrate the introduction there of electric lights.  The festival lasted three days and was quite an affair.  The street was garlanded with yellow and white bunting; there were processions and “floats” and brass bands.  Marcus Schouler was in his element during the whole time of the celebration.  He was one of the marshals of the parade, and was to be seen at every hour of the day, wearing a borrowed high hat and cotton gloves, and galloping a broken-down cab-horse over the cobbles.  He carried a baton covered with yellow and white calico, with which he made furious passes and gestures.  His voice was soon reduced to a whisper by continued shouting, and he raged and fretted over trifles till he wore himself thin.  McTeague was disgusted with him.  As often as Marcus passed the window of the flat the dentist would mutter: 

“Ah, you think you’re smart, don’t you?”

The result of the festival was the organizing of a body known as the “Polk Street Improvement Club,” of which Marcus was elected secretary.  McTeague and Trina often heard of him in this capacity through Heise the harness-maker.  Marcus had evidently come to have political aspirations.  It appeared that he was gaining a reputation as a maker of speeches, delivered with fiery emphasis, and occasionally reprinted in the “Progress,” the organ of the club—­“outraged constituencies,” “opinions warped by personal bias,” “eyes blinded by party prejudice,” etc.

Of her family, Trina heard every fortnight in letters from her mother.  The upholstery business which Mr. Sieppe had bought was doing poorly, and Mrs. Sieppe bewailed the day she had ever left B Street.  Mr. Sieppe was losing money every month.  Owgooste, who was to have gone to school, had been forced to go to work in “the store,” picking waste.  Mrs. Sieppe was obliged to take a lodger or two.  Affairs were in a very bad way.  Occasionally she spoke of Marcus.  Mr. Sieppe had not forgotten him despite his own troubles, but still had an eye out for some one whom Marcus could “go in with” on a ranch.