The party filed out at the tail end of the audience.
Already the lights were being extinguished and the
ushers spreading druggeting over the upholstered seats.
McTeague and the Sieppes took an uptown car that would
bring them near Polk Street. The car was crowded;
McTeague and Owgooste were obliged to stand.
The little boy fretted to be taken in his mother’s
lap, but Mrs. Sieppe emphatically refused.
On their way home they discussed the performance.
“I—I like best der yodlers.”
“Ah, the soloist was the best—the
lady who sang those sad songs.”
“Wasn’t—wasn’t that magic
lantern wonderful, where the figures moved? Wonderful—ah,
wonderful! And wasn’t that first act funny,
where the fellow fell down all the time? And
that musical act, and the fellow with the burnt-cork
face who played ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’
on the beer bottles.”
They got off at Polk Street and walked up a block
to the flat. The street was dark and empty; opposite
the flat, in the back of the deserted market, the
ducks and geese were calling persistently.
As they were buying their tamales from the half-breed
Mexican at the street corner, McTeague observed:
“Marcus ain’t gone to bed yet. See,
there’s a light in his window. There!”
he exclaimed at once, “I forgot the doorkey.
Well, Marcus can let us in.”
Hardly had he rung the bell at the street door of
the flat when the bolt was shot back. In the
hall at the top of the long, narrow staircase there
was the sound of a great scurrying. Maria Macapa
stood there, her hand upon the rope that drew the
bolt; Marcus was at her side; Old Grannis was in the
background, looking over their shoulders; while little
Miss Baker leant over the banisters, a strange man
in a drab overcoat at her side. As McTeague’s
party stepped into the doorway a half-dozen voices
cried:
“Is that you, Miss Sieppe?”
“Is your name Trina Sieppe?”
Then, shriller than all the rest, Maria Macapa screamed:
“Oh, Miss Sieppe, come up here quick. Your
lottery ticket has won five thousand dollars!”
“What nonsense!” answered Trina.
“Ach Gott! What is ut?” cried Mrs.
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.
“Miss Sieppe, Miss Sieppe, your ticket has won
five thousand dollars,” cried Maria. “Don’t
you remember the lottery ticket I sold you in Doctor
McTeague’s office?”
“Trina!” almost screamed her mother.
“Five tausend thalers! five tausend thalers!
If popper were only here!”
