iding a blow. All at once there was
a cry. Marcus had made a quick, peculiar motion, swinging his arm upward
with a wide and sweeping gesture; his jack-knife lay open in his palm;
it shot forward as he flung it, glinted sharply by McTeague's head, and
struck quivering into the wall behind.

A sudden chill ran through the room; the others stood transfixed, as at
the swift passage of some cold and deadly wind. Death had stooped there
for an instant, had stooped and past, leaving a trail of terror and
confusion. Then the door leading to the street slammed; Marcus had
disappeared.

Thereon a great babel of exclamation arose. The tension of that all but
fatal instant snapped, and speech became once more possible.

"He would have knifed you."

"Narrow escape."

"What kind of a man do you call THAT?"

"'Tain't his fault he ain't a murderer."

"I'd have him up for it."

"And they two have been the greatest kind of friends."

"He didn't touch you, did he?"

"No--no--no."

"What a--what a devil! What treachery! A regular greaser trick!"

"Look out he don't stab you in the back. If that's the kind of man he
is, you never can tell."

Frenna drew the knife from the wall.

"Guess I'll keep this toad-stabber," he observed. "That fellow won't
come round for it in a hurry; goodsized blade, too." The group examined
it with intense interest.

"Big enough to let the life out of any man," observed Heise.

"What--what--what did he do it for?" stammered McTeague. "I got no
quarrel with him."

He was puzzled and harassed by the strangeness of it all. Marcus would
have killed him; had thrown his knife at him in the true, uncanny
"greaser" style. It was inexplicable. McTeague sat down again, looking
stupidly about on the floor. In a corner of the room his eye encountered
his broken pipe, a dozen little fragments of painted porcelain and the
stem of cherry wood and amber.

At that sight his tardy wrath, ever lagging behind the original affront,
suddenly blazed up. Instantly his huge jaws clicked together.

"He can't make small of ME," he exclaimed, suddenly. "I'll show Marcus
Schouler--I'll show him--I'll----"

He got up and clapped on his hat.

"Now, Doctor," remonstrated Heise, standing between him and the door,
"don't go make a fool of yourself."

"Let 'um alone," joined in Frenna, catching the dentist by the arm;
"he's full, anyhow."

"He broke my pipe," answered McTeague.

It was this that had roused him. The