at service of plate. It was soft, wasn't it? You could bite into a
plate and leave a dent? The handles of the knives, now, were they gold,
too? All the knife was made from one piece of gold, was it? And the
forks the same? The interior of the trunk was quilted, of course? Did
Maria ever polish the plates herself? When the company ate off this
service, it must have made a fine noise--these gold knives and forks
clinking together upon these gold plates.

"Now, let's have it all over again, Maria," pleaded Zerkow. "Begin
now with 'There were more than a hundred pieces, and every one of them
gold.' Go on, begin, begin, begin!"

The red-headed Pole was in a fever of excitement. Maria's recital had
become a veritable mania with him. As he listened, with closed eyes and
trembling lips, he fancied he could see that wonderful plate before him,
there on the table, under his eyes, under his hand, ponderous, massive,
gleaming. He tormented Maria into a second repetition of the story--into
a third. The more his mind dwelt upon it, the sharper grew his desire.
Then, with Maria's refusal to continue the tale, came the reaction.
Zerkow awoke as from some ravishing dream. The plate was gone, was
irretrievably lost. There was nothing in that miserable room but grimy
rags and rust-corroded iron. What torment! what agony! to be so near--so
near, to see it in one's distorted fancy as plain as in a mirror. To
know every individual piece as an old friend; to feel its weight; to
be dazzled by its glitter; to call it one's own, own; to have it to
oneself, hugged to the breast; and then to start, to wake, to come down
to the horrible reality.

"And you, YOU had it once," gasped Zerkow, clawing at her arm; "you had
it once, all your own. Think of it, and now it's gone."

"Gone for good and all."

"Perhaps it's buried near your old place somewhere."

"It's gone--gone--gone," chanted Maria in a monotone.

Zerkow dug his nails into his scalp, tearing at his red hair.

"Yes, yes, it's gone, it's gone--lost forever! Lost forever!"

Marcus and the dentist walked up the silent street and reached the
little dog hospital. They had hardly spoken on the way. McTeague's brain
was in a whirl; speech failed him. He was busy thinking of the great
thing that had happened that night, and was trying to realize what its
effect would be upon his life--his life and Trina's. As soon as they had
found themselves in the street, Marcus had relapsed at once to a