"I promised a duck up here on the avenue I'd call for his dog at four
this afternoon."

Marcus was Old Grannis's assistant in a little dog hospital that the
latter had opened in a sort of alley just off Polk Street, some four
blocks above Old Grannis lived in one of the back rooms of McTeague's
flat. He was an Englishman and an expert dog surgeon, but Marcus
Schouler was a bungler in the profession. His father had been a
veterinary surgeon who had kept a livery stable near by, on California
Street, and Marcus's knowledge of the diseases of domestic animals had
been picked up in a haphazard way, much after the manner of McTeague's
education. Somehow he managed to impress Old Grannis, a gentle,
simple-minded old man, with a sense of his fitness, bewildering him with
a torrent of empty phrases that he delivered with fierce gestures and
with a manner of the greatest conviction.

"You'd better come along with me, Mac," observed Marcus. "We'll get the
duck's dog, and then we'll take a little walk, huh? You got nothun to
do. Come along."

McTeague went out with him, and the two friends proceeded up to the
avenue to the house where the dog was to be found. It was a huge
mansion-like place, set in an enormous garden that occupied a whole
third of the block; and while Marcus tramped up the front steps and rang
the doorbell boldly, to show his independence, McTeague remained below
on the sidewalk, gazing stupidly at the curtained windows, the marble
steps, and the bronze griffins, troubled and a little confused by all
this massive luxury.

After they had taken the dog to the hospital and had left him to whimper