Between seven and eight the street breakfasted. Now and then a waiter
from one of the cheap restaurants crossed from one sidewalk to the
other, balancing on one palm a tray covered with a napkin. Everywhere
was the smell of coffee and of frying steaks. A little later, following
in the path of the day laborers, came the clerks and shop girls,
dressed with a certain cheap smartness, always in a hurry, glancing
apprehensively at the power-house clock. Their employers followed
an hour or so later--on the cable cars for the most part whiskered
gentlemen with huge stomachs, reading the morning papers with great
gravity; bank cashiers and insurance clerks with flowers in their
buttonholes.

At the same time the school children invaded the street, filling the air
with a clamor of shrill voices, stopping at the stationers' shops, or
idling a moment in the doorways of the candy stores. For over half an
hour they held possession of the sidewalks, then suddenly disappeared,
leaving behind one or two stragglers who hurried along with great
strides of their little thin legs, very anxious and preoccupied.

Towards eleven o'clock the ladies from the great avenue a block above
Polk Street made their appearance, promenading the sidewalks leisurely,
deliberately. They were at their morning's marketing. They were handsome
women, beautifully dressed. They knew by name their butchers and grocers
and vegetable men. From his window McTeague saw them in front of the
stalls, gloved and veiled and daintily shod, the subservient provision
men at their elbows, scribbling hastily in the order books. They all
seemed to know one another, these grand ladies from the fashionable
avenue. Meetings took place here and there; a conversation was begun;
others arrived; groups were formed; little impromptu receptions were
held before the chopping blocks of butchers' stalls, or on the sidewalk,