"Ah, sweeter'n bells. Wasn't that punch-bowl awful heavy?"

"All you could do to lift it."

"I know. Oh, I know," answered Zerkow, clawing at his lips. "Where did
it all go to? Where did it go?"

Maria shook her head.

"It's gone, anyhow."

"Ah, gone, gone! Think of it! The punch-bowl gone, and the engraved
ladle, and the plates and goblets. What a sight it must have been all
heaped together!"

"It was a wonderful sight."

"Yes, wonderful; it must have been."

On the lower steps of that cheap flat, the Mexican woman and the
red-haired Polish Jew mused long over that vanished, half-mythical gold
plate.

Marcus and the dentist spent Washington's Birthday across the bay. The
journey over was one long agony to McTeague. He shook with a formless,
uncertain dread; a dozen times he would have turned back had not Marcus
been with him. The stolid giant was as nervous as a schoolboy. He
fancied that his call upon Miss Sieppe was an outrageous affront. She
would freeze him with a stare; he would be shown the door, would be