Frank Norris - Essential Novelists - Frank Norris

“Old bear,” Trina would answer, grasping him by both huge ears and swaying his head from side to side. “Kiss me, then. Tell me, Mac, did you think any less of me that first time I let you kiss me there in the station? Oh, Mac, dear, what a funny nose you've got, all full of hairs inside; and, Mac, do you know you've got a bald spot—” she dragged his head down towards her—“right on the top of your head.” Then she would seriously kiss the bald spot in question, declaring:

“That'll make the hair grow.”

Trina took an infinite enjoyment in playing with McTeague's great square-cut head, rumpling his hair till it stood on end, putting her fingers in his eyes, or stretching his ears out straight, and watching the effect with her head on one side. It was like a little child playing with some gigantic, good-natured Saint Bernard.

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.”

“All right, all right,” cried the dentist, hastily, feeling in his pockets. “I don't want you should be out anything on my account, old man. Here, will four bits do?”

“I don't WANT your damn money,” shouted Marcus in a sudden rage, throwing back the coin. “I ain't no beggar.”

McTeague was miserable. How had he offended his pal?

“Well, I want you should take it, Mark,” he said, pushing it towards him.

“I tell you I won't touch your money,” exclaimed the other through his clenched teeth, white with passion. “I've been played for a sucker long enough.”

“What's the matter with you lately, Mark?” remonstrated McTeague. “You've got a grouch about something. Is there anything I've done?”

“Well, that's all right, that's all right,” returned Marcus as he rose from the table. “That's all right. I've been played for a sucker long enough, that's all. I've been played for a sucker long enough.” He went away with a parting malevolent glance.

At the corner of Polk Street, between the flat and the car conductors' coffee-joint, was Frenna's. It was a corner grocery; advertisements for cheap butter and eggs, painted in green marking-ink upon wrapping paper, stood about on the sidewalk outside. The doorway was decorated with a huge Milwaukee beer sign. Back of the store proper was a bar where white sand covered the floor. A few tables and chairs were scattered here and there. The walls were hung with gorgeously-colored tobacco advertisements and colored lithographs of trotting horses. On the wall behind the bar was a model of a full-rigged ship enclosed in a bottle.

It was at this place that the dentist used to leave his pitcher to be filled on Sunday afternoons. Since his engagement to Trina he had discontinued this habit. However, he still dropped into Frenna's one or two nights in the week. He spent a pleasant hour there, smoking his huge porcelain pipe and drinking his beer. He never joined any of the groups of piquet players around the tables. In fact, he hardly spoke to anyone but the bartender and Marcus.

For Frenna's was one of Marcus Schouler's haunts; a great deal of his time was spent there. He involved himself in fearful political and social discussions with Heise the harness-maker, and with one or two old German, habitues of the place. These discussions Marcus carried on, as was his custom, at the top of his voice, gesticulating fiercely, banging the table with his fists, brandishing the plates and glasses, exciting himself with his own clamor.

On a certain Saturday evening, a few days after the scene at the coffee-joint, the dentist bethought him to spend a quiet evening at Frenna's. He had not been there for some time, and, besides that, it occurred to him that the day was his birthday. He would permit himself an extra pipe and a few glasses of beer. When McTeague entered Frenna's back room by the street door, he found Marcus and Heise already installed at one of the tables. Two or three of the old Germans sat opposite them, gulping their beer from time to time. Heise was smoking a cigar, but Marcus had before him his fourth whiskey cocktail. At the moment of McTeague's entrance Marcus had the floor.

“It can't be proven,” he was yelling. “I defy any sane politician whose eyes are not blinded by party prejudices, whose opinions are not warped by a personal bias, to substantiate such a statement. Look at your facts, look at your figures. I am a free American citizen, ain't I? I pay my taxes to support a good government, don't I? It's a contract between me and the government, ain't it? Well, then, by damn! if the authorities do not or will not afford me protection for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then my obligations are at an end; I withhold my taxes. I do—I do—I say I do. What?” He glared about him, seeking opposition.

“That's nonsense,” observed Heise, quietly. “Try it once; you'll get jugged.” But this observation of the harness-maker's roused Marcus to the last pitch of frenzy.