Day after day, McTeague saw the same panorama unroll itself.  The bay window of his “Dental Parlors” was for him a point of vantage from which he watched the world go past.

On Sundays, however, all was changed.  As he stood in the bay window, after finishing his beer, wiping his lips, and looking out into the street, McTeague was conscious of the difference.  Nearly all the stores were closed.  No wagons passed.  A few people hurried up and down the sidewalks, dressed in cheap Sunday finery.  A cable car went by; on the outside seats were a party of returning picnickers.  The mother, the father, a young man, and a young girl, and three children.  The two older people held empty lunch baskets in their laps, while the bands of the children’s hats were stuck full of oak leaves.  The girl carried a huge bunch of wilting poppies and wild flowers.

As the car approached McTeague’s window the young man got up and swung himself off the platform, waving goodby to the party.  Suddenly McTeague recognized him.

“There’s Marcus Schouler,” he muttered behind his mustache.

Marcus Schouler was the dentist’s one intimate friend.  The acquaintance had begun at the car conductors’ coffee-joint, where the two occupied the same table and met at every meal.  Then they made the discovery that they both lived in the same flat, Marcus occupying a room on the floor above McTeague.  On different occasions McTeague had treated Marcus for an ulcerated tooth and had refused to accept payment.  Soon it came to be an understood thing between them.  They were “pals.”

McTeague, listening, heard Marcus go up-stairs to his room above.  In a few minutes his door opened again.  McTeague knew that he had come out into the hall and was leaning over the banisters.

“Oh, Mac!” he called.  McTeague came to his door.

“Hullo! ’sthat you, Mark?”

“Sure,” answered Marcus.  “Come on up.”

“You come on down.”

“No, come on up.”

“Oh, you come on down.”

“Oh, you lazy duck!” retorted Marcus, coming down the stairs.

“Been out to the Cliff House on a picnic,” he explained as he sat down on the bed-lounge, “with my uncle and his people—­the Sieppes, you know.  By damn! it was hot,” he suddenly vociferated.  “Just look at that!  Just look at that!” he cried, dragging at his limp collar.  “That’s the third one since morning; it is—­it is, for a fact—­and you got your stove going.”  He began to tell about the picnic, talking very loud and fast, gesturing furiously, very excited over trivial details.  Marcus could not talk without getting excited.

“You ought t’have seen, y’ought t’have seen.  I tell you, it was outa sight.  It was; it was, for a fact.”

“Yes, yes,” answered McTeague, bewildered, trying to follow.  “Yes, that’s so.”