affected by McTeague. Maria contended that the lash of the whip hurt the most; Trina, that the butt did the most injury.
Maria showed Trina the holes in the walls and the loosened boards in the flooring where Zerkow had been searching for the gold plate. Of late he had been digging in the back yard and had ransacked the hay in his horse- shed for the concealed leather chest he imagined he would find. But he was becoming impatient, evidently.
'The way he goes on,' Maria told Trina, 'is somethun dreadful. He's gettun regularly sick with it — got a fever every night — don't sleep, and when he does, talks to himself. Says 'More'n a hundred pieces, an' every one of 'em gold. More'n a hundred pieces, an' every one of 'em gold.' Then he'll whale me with his whip, and shout, 'You know where it is. Tell me, tell me, you swine, or I'll do for you.' An' then he'll get down on his knees and whimper, and beg me to tell um where I've hid it. He's just gone plum crazy. Sometimes he has regular fits, he gets so mad, and rolls on the floor and scratches himself.'
One morning in November, about ten o'clock, Trina pasted a 'Made in France' label on the bottom of a Noah's ark, and leaned back in her chair with a long sigh of relief. She had just finished a large Christmas order for Uncle Oelbermann, and there was nothing else she could do that morning. The bed had not yet been made, nor had the breakfast things been washed. Trina hesitated for a moment, then put her chin in the air indifferently.
'Bah!' she said, 'let them go till this afternoon. I don't care WHEN the room is put to rights, and I know Mac don't.' She determined that instead of making the bed or washing the dishes she would go and call on Miss Baker on the floor below. The little dressmaker might ask her to stay to lunch, and that would be something saved, as the dentist had announced his intention that morning of taking a long walk out to the Presidio to be gone all day.
But Trina rapped on Miss Baker's door in vain that morning. She was out. Perhaps she was gone to the florist's to buy some geranium seeds. However, Old Grannis's door stood a little ajar, and on hearing Trina at Miss Baker's room, the old Englishman came out into the hall.
'She's gone out,' he said, uncertainly, and in a half whisper, 'went out about half an hour ago. I–I think she went to the drug store to get some wafers for the goldfish.'
'Don't you go to your dog hospital any more, Mister Grannis?' said Trina, leaning against the balustrade in the hall, willing to talk a moment.
Old Grannis stood in the doorway of his room, in his carpet slippers and faded corduroy jacket that he wore when at home.
'Why — why,' he said, hesitating, tapping his chin thoughtfully. 'You see I'm thinking of giving up the little hospital.'
'Giving it up?'
'You see, the people at the book store where I buy my pamphlets have found out — I told them of my contrivance for binding books, and one of the members of the firm came up to look at it. He offered me quite a sum if I would sell him the right of it — the — patent of it — quite a sum. In fact — in fact — yes, quite a sum, quite.' He rubbed his chin tremulously and looked about him on the floor.
'Why, isn't that fine?' said Trina, good-naturedly. 'I'm very glad, Mister Grannis. Is it a good price?'
'Quite a sum — quite. In fact, I never dreamed of having so much money.'
'Now, see here, Mister Grannis,' said Trina, decisively, 'I want to give you a good piece of advice. Here are you and Miss Baker—' The old Englishman started nervously—'You and Miss Baker, that have been in love with each other for—'
'Oh, Mrs. McTeague, that subject — if you would please — Miss Baker is such an estimable lady.'
'Fiddlesticks!' said Trina. 'You're in love with each other, and the whole flat knows it; and you two have been living here side by side year in and year out, and you've never said a word to each other. It's all nonsense. Now, I want you should go right in and speak to her just as soon as she comes home, and say you've come into money and you want her to marry you.'
'Impossible — impossible!' exclaimed the old Englishman, alarmed and perturbed. 'It's quite out of the question. I wouldn't presume.'
'Well, do you love her, or not?'
'Really, Mrs. McTeague, I–I—you must excuse me. It's a matter so personal — so — I — Oh, yes, I love her. Oh, yes, indeed,' he exclaimed, suddenly.
'Well, then, she loves you. She told me so.'
'Oh!'
'She did. She said those very words.'
Miss Baker had said nothing of the kind — would have died sooner than have made such a confession; but Trina had drawn her own conclusions, like every other lodger of the flat, and thought the time was come for decided action.
'Now you do just as I tell you, and when she comes home, go right in and see her, and have it over with. Now, don't say another word. I'm going; but you do just as I tell you.'
Trina turned about and went down-stairs. She had decided, since Miss Baker was not at home, that she would run over and see Maria; possibly she could have lunch there. At any rate, Maria would offer her a cup of tea.
Old Grannis stood for a long time just as Trina had left him, his hands trembling, the blood coming and going in his withered cheeks.
'She said, she — she — she told her — she said that — that—' he could get no farther.
Then he faced about and entered his room, closing the door behind him. For a long time he sat in his armchair, drawn close to the wall in front of the table on which stood his piles of pamphlets and his little binding apparatus.
'I wonder,' said Trina, as she crossed the yard back of Zerkow's house, 'I wonder what rent Zerkow and Maria pay for this place. I'll bet it's cheaper than where Mac and I are.'
Trina found Maria sitting in front of the kitchen stove, her chin upon her breast. Trina went up to her. She was dead. And as Trina touched her shoulder, her head rolled sideways and showed a fearful gash in her throat under her ear. All the front of her dress was soaked through and through.
Trina backed sharply away from the body, drawing her hands up to her very shoulders, her eyes staring and wide, an expression of unutterable horror twisting her face.
'Oh-h-h!' she exclaimed in a long breath, her voice hardly rising above a whisper. 'Oh-h, isn't that horrible!' Suddenly she turned and fled through the front part of the house to the street door, that opened upon the little alley. She looked wildly about her. Directly across the way a butcher's boy was getting into his two-wheeled cart drawn up in front of the opposite house, while near by a peddler of wild game was coming down the street, a brace of ducks in his hand.
'Oh, say — say,' gasped Trina, trying to get her voice, 'say, come over here quick.'
The butcher's boy paused, one foot on the wheel, and stared. Trina beckoned frantically.
'Come over here, come over here quick.'
The young fellow swung himself into his seat.
'What's the matter with that woman?' he said, half aloud.
'There's a murder been done,' cried Trina, swaying in the doorway.
The young fellow drove away, his head over his shoulder, staring at Trina with eyes that were fixed and absolutely devoid of expression.
'What's the matter with that woman?' he said again to himself as he turned the corner.
Trina wondered why she didn't scream, how she could keep from it — how, at such a moment as this, she could remember that it was improper to make a disturbance and create a scene in the street. The peddler of wild game was looking at her suspiciously. It would not do to tell him. He would go away like the butcher's boy.
'Now, wait a minute,' Trina said to herself, speaking aloud. She put her hands to her head. 'Now, wait a minute. It won't do for me to lose my wits now. What must I do?' She looked about her. There was the same familiar aspect of Polk Street. She could see it at the end of the alley. The big market opposite the flat, the delivery carts rattling up and down, the great ladies from the avenue at their morning shopping, the cable cars trundling past, loaded with passengers. She saw a little boy in a flat leather cap whistling and calling for an unseen dog, slapping his small knee from time to time. Two men came out of Frenna's saloon, laughing heartily. Heise the harness-maker stood in the vestibule of his shop, a bundle of whittlings in his apron of greasy ticking. And all this was going on, people were laughing and living, buying and selling, walking about out there on the sunny sidewalks,
