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The others swarmed over the park, now around the swings, now in the Casino, now in the museum, now invading the merry-go-round. At half-past five o'clock Mr. Sieppe marshalled the party together. It was time to return home. The family insisted that Marcus and McTeague should take supper with them at their home and should stay over night. Mrs.
The children shouted shrilly. When the train was gone, they all rushed to see the nickel and the crossed pins. The nickel had been jolted off, but the pins had been flattened out so that they bore a faint resemblance to opened scissors. A great contention arose among the children for the possession of these "scissors." Mr. Sieppe was obliged to intervene. He reflected gravely.
Soon they would all be gone. "Well, Trina," exclaimed Mr. Sieppe, "goot-py; perhaps you gome visit us somedime." Mrs. Sieppe began crying again. "Ach, Trina, ven shall I efer see you again?" Tears came to Trina's eyes in spite of herself. She put her arms around her mother. "Oh, sometime, sometime," she cried. The twins and Owgooste clung to Trina's skirts, fretting and whimpering.
Not Stanley penetrating for the first time into the Dark Continent, not Napoleon leading his army across the Alps, was more weighted with responsibility, more burdened with care, more overcome with the sense of the importance of his undertaking, than was Mr. Sieppe during this period of preparation.
Sieppe, misunderstanding, supposing a calamity. "What what what," stammered the dentist, confused by the lights, the crowded stairway, the medley of voices. The party reached the landing. The others surrounded them. Marcus alone seemed to rise to the occasion. "Le' me be the first to congratulate you," he cried, catching Trina's hand. Every one was talking at once.
"A cousin of mine won forty dollars once," observed Miss Baker. "But he spent every cent of it buying more tickets, and never won anything." Then the reminiscences began. Maria told about the butcher on the next block who had won twenty dollars the last drawing. Mrs. Sieppe knew a gasfitter in Oakland who had won several times; once a hundred dollars.
I don't know how it happened. It came on so slow that I was, that that that it was done before I knew it, before I could help myself. I know we're pals, us two, and I knew how how you and Miss Sieppe were. I know now, I knew then; but that wouldn't have made any difference. Before I knew it it it there I was. I can't help it.
Trina and McTeague knelt. The dentist's knees thudded on the floor and he presented to view the soles of his shoes, painfully new and unworn, the leather still yellow, the brass nail heads still glittering. Trina sank at his side very gracefully, setting her dress and train with a little gesture of her free hand. The company bowed their heads, Mr. Sieppe shutting his eyes tight. But Mrs.
Mr. Sieppe came running down the tracks, waving his cane. "To one side," he shouted, motioning them off the track; "der drain gomes." A local passenger train was just passing B Street station, some quarter of a mile behind them. The party stood to one side to let it pass. Marcus put a nickel and two crossed pins upon the rail, and waved his hat to the passengers as the train roared past.
Marcus Schouler, in the manner of a man of the world, who knew how to act in every situation, stepped forward and, even before Mr. or Mrs. Sieppe, took Trina's hand. "Let me be the first to congratulate Mrs. McTeague," he said, feeling very noble and heroic. The strain of the previous moments was relaxed immediately, the guests crowded around the pair, shaking hands a babel of talk arose.
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