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: 

“Yes, it’s them.”

“Is that you, Mac?”

“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!”

CHAPTER 7

“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!”