登陆注册
15445700000069

第69章 CHAPTER 13(1)

One morning about a week after Marcus had left for the southern part of the State, McTeague found an oblong letter thrust through the letter-drop of the door of his "Parlors."

The address was typewritten. He opened it. The letter had been sent from the City Hall and was stamped in one corner with the seal of the State of California, very official; the form and file numbers superscribed.

McTeague had been making fillings when this letter arrived.

He was in his "Parlors," pottering over his movable rack underneath the bird cage in the bay window. He was making "blocks" to be used in large proximal cavities and "cylinders" for commencing fillings. He heard the postman's step in the hall and saw the envelopes begin to shuttle themselves through the slit of his letter-drop. Then came the fat oblong envelope, with its official seal, that dropped flatwise to the floor with a sodden, dull impact.

The dentist put down the broach and scissors and gathered up his mail. There were four letters altogether. One was for Trina, in Selina's "elegant" handwriting; another was an advertisement of a new kind of operating chair for dentists; the third was a card from a milliner on the next block, announcing an opening; and the fourth, contained in the fat oblong envelope, was a printed form with blanks left for names and dates, and addressed to McTeague, from an office in the City Hall. McTeague read it through laboriously. "I don' know, I don' know," he muttered, looking stupidly at the rifle manufacturer's calendar. Then he heard Trina, from the kitchen, singing as she made a clattering noise with the breakfast dishes. "I guess I'll ask Trina about it," he muttered.

He went through the suite, by the sitting-room, where the sun was pouring in through the looped backed Nottingham curtains upon the clean white matting and the varnished surface of the melodeon, passed on through the bedroom, with its framed lithographs of round-cheeked English babies and alert fox terriers, and came out into the brick-paved kitchen. The kitchen was clean as a new whistle; the freshly blackened cook stove glowed like a negro's hide; the tins and porcelain-lined stew-pans might have been of silver and of ivory. Trina was in the centre of the room, wiping off, with a damp sponge, the oilcloth table-cover, on which they had breakfasted. Never had she looked so pretty.

Early though it was, her enormous tiara of swarthy hair was neatly combed and coiled, not a pin was so much as loose.

She wore a blue calico skirt with a white figure, and a belt of imitation alligator skin clasped around her small, firmly-corseted waist; her shirt waist was of pink linen, so new and crisp that it crackled with every movement, while around the collar, tied in a neat knot, was one of McTeague's lawn ties which she had appropriated. Her sleeves were carefully rolled up almost to her shoulders, and nothing could have been more delicious than the sight of her small round arms, white as milk, moving back and forth as she sponged the table-cover, a faint touch of pink coming and going at the elbows as they bent and straightened. She looked up quickly as her husband entered, her narrow eyes alight, her adorable little chin in the air; her lips rounded and opened with the last words of her song, so that one could catch a glint of gold in the fillings of her upper teeth.

The whole scene--the clean kitchen and its clean brick floor; the smell of coffee that lingered in the air; Trina herself, fresh as if from a bath, and singing at her work; the morning sun, striking obliquely through the white muslin half-curtain of the window and spanning the little kitchen with a bridge of golden mist--gave off, as it were, a note of gayety that was not to be resisted. Through the opened top of the window came the noises of Polk Street, already long awake. One heard the chanting of street cries, the shrill calling of children on their way to school, the merry rattle of a butcher's cart, the brisk noise of hammering, or the occasional prolonged roll of a cable car trundling heavily past, with a vibrant whirring of its jostled glass and the joyous clanging of its bells.

"What is it, Mac, dear?" said Trina.

McTeague shut the door behind him with his heel and handed her the letter. Trina read it through. Then suddenly her small hand gripped tightly upon the sponge, so that the water started from it and dripped in a little pattering deluge upon the bricks.

The letter--or rather printed notice--informed McTeague that he had never received a diploma from a dental college, and that in consequence he was forbidden to practise his profession any longer. A legal extract bearing upon the case was attached in small type.

"Why, what's all this?" said Trina, calmly, without thought as yet.

"I don' know, I don' know," answered her husband.

"You can't practise any longer," continued Trina,--"'is herewith prohibited and enjoined from further continuing----

'" She re-read the extract, her forehead lifting and puckering. She put the sponge carefully away in its wire rack over the sink, and drew up a chair to the table, spreading out the notice before her. "Sit down," she said to McTeague. "Draw up to the table here, Mac, and let's see what this is."

"I got it this morning," murmured the dentist. "It just now came. I was making some fillings--there, in the 'Parlors,' in the window--and the postman shoved it through the door. I thought it was a number of the 'American System of Dentistry' at first, and when I'd opened it and looked at it I thought I'd better----"

"Say, Mac," interrupted Trina, looking up from the notice, "DIDN'T you ever go to a dental college?"

"Huh? What? What?" exclaimed McTeague.

"How did you learn to be a dentist? Did you go to a college?"

"I went along with a fellow who came to the mine once. My mother sent me. We used to go from one camp to another. I sharpened his excavators for him, and put up his notices in the towns--stuck them up in the post-offices and on the doors of the Odd Fellows' halls. He had a wagon."

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 追梦十七岁的世界

    追梦十七岁的世界

    每一瞬,将火花记录下来,怀缅在思想中曾有过的世界。
  • 蔽日遮天

    蔽日遮天

    “大帝?玉皇大帝还是皇帝”“呃,你小家伙还知道皇帝那家伙,玉皇大帝是谁?你这儿不是地球么?怎么皇帝也来过这里?不应该啊,大帝不是封印了这片星空了么?”上官峰翻了翻白眼知道了,此皇帝非彼皇帝。“大帝是什么?很牛么?”“牛?牛是什么”“呃”“虽然不知道牛是什么,但是大帝那可是很厉害的存在,那是修行到了一定地步的一种称谓,到了那个境界,嘿嘿,一念之间星球崩灭,只手跨越无尽虚空,掌缘生灭,抬脚间跨越亿万星河。你说厉害么?”“哈哈,那是小说里的情节,神话而已”“没见识”说完站起来走向最左一个石室,到了门口身体居然瞬间缩小,走了进去。“泰迪?”上官峰愣了半天,我勒个去。被狗鄙视了。
  • 拘梦于枕与谁长枕

    拘梦于枕与谁长枕

    提笔说书的故事,不仅限与我和你熟悉,在未知的角落里,你哼着莫名熟悉的曲调,我拿什么去祭奠这一种哀伤.未经本人允许禁止复制粘贴使用。谢谢。
  • 位面系统:跑腿很忙

    位面系统:跑腿很忙

    位面猎手听起来高大上,其实就是各个位面的跑腿的。讲诉一个原本普通的女生,当上位面猎手的升级生活。
  • 剩者为王:新经济时代企业的游戏规则

    剩者为王:新经济时代企业的游戏规则

    本书在阐述剩者为王这一理论的同时,列举和分析了近几年来国外、国内发生的典型经济、企业事件的前因后果。本书的理念是:与狼共舞,还要像狼一样,想办法剩下来,成为王者,而不被吃掉!
  • 重生之爱妃不好惹

    重生之爱妃不好惹

    她,全球唯一一个至尊瞳术师,一朝穿越变成下等小国亦紫国的大将军府的废物兼草包的嫡系三小姐。废物?我让你知道什么是废物,废你筋脉,毁你丹田。翻手为云,覆手为雨,从此称霸天下!但谁能告诉我,躺我床上这妖孽混蛋是谁!“夫人,为夫已经暖好了床,快点来睡吧。”楚临倾看着床上那混蛋笑的欠揍的脸怒吼道:“滚!”
  • 永恒武仙

    永恒武仙

    通古大陆,边陲小镇,一个叫沐言的少年天骄,却因飞来横祸而武功尽失,成为废材,少年至尊梦,脚踏武仙台。他坚信是龙终可飞,一遇风云变化龙,卧榻三年,强势崛起,重现昔日天骄,登顶武仙台。等级顺序:凝气、凝元、结丹、强者武王、飞天武皇、霸主武尊、撼天武君、绝世武帝、永恒武仙
  • 红颜非祸水

    红颜非祸水

    五岁,他将她从死人堆里救出,承诺保护她一生。十八岁,他将她逐出师门,却又跟着她跳下悬崖。二十岁,他将剑刺入她的胸膛,然后服下断肠散。二十一岁,他和她被正派围攻,她为他变成魔头。铁链穿透琵琶骨,石牢锁住孱弱身,她被伤到体无完肤。这一次,换他用深情将她追回。
  • 哈喽鬼神小姐

    哈喽鬼神小姐

    自杀死亡以后的安菲音花痴跟着exo进入他们的宿舍exo花美男又会和性格多变的鬼神小姐发生一些什么事情呢哈喽鬼神小姐请多指教
  • 重生之校园废材

    重生之校园废材

    “烂尾,慎点!!”柒是个无情又有情的杀手头子,叶七柒是个除家世外一无是处的废材兼纨绔;柒执行任务执行到了地狱,叶七柒追帅哥追到了地狱。两个无所交集的人在某一天变成了一个人!对于重新读书,做学生,柒表示毫无压力。对于一众极品亲戚,她表示应付得了。对于“傻傻”的顾琰宸,她表示毫无……不对,她表示鸭梨山大!PS,欢迎建议、欢迎收藏、欢迎票票,捣乱左拐!我不是写简介的料。