would come out in the hall after one of these apparitions, her little
false curls shaking, talking loud and shrill to any one in reach of her
voice.

"Well," Marcus would shout, "shut your door, then, if you don't want to
see. Look out, now, here I come again. Not even a porous plaster on me
this time."

On this Wednesday morning Marcus called McTeague out into the hall, to
the head of the stairs that led down to the street door.

"Come and listen to Maria, Mac," said he.

Maria sat on the next to the lowest step, her chin propped by her
two fists. The red-headed Polish Jew, the ragman Zerkow, stood in the
doorway. He was talking eagerly.

"Now, just once more, Maria," he was saying. "Tell it to us just once
more." Maria's voice came up the stairway in a monotone. Marcus and
McTeague caught a phrase from time to time.

"There were more than a hundred pieces, and every one of them gold--just
that punch-bowl was worth a fortune-thick, fat, red gold."

"Get onto to that, will you?" observed Marcus. "The old skin has got her
started on the plate. Ain't they a pair for you?"

"And it rang like bells, didn't it?" prompted Zerkow.

"Sweeter'n church bells, and clearer."