The chance had come at last when the
father died, corroded with alcohol, collapsing in a few hours. Two or
three years later a travelling dentist visited the mine and put up his
tent near the bunk-house. He was more or less of a charlatan, but he
fired Mrs. McTeague's ambition, and young McTeague went away with him
to learn his profession. He had learnt it after a fashion, mostly by
watching the charlatan operate. He had read many of the necessary books,
but he was too hopelessly stupid to get much benefit from them.
Then one day at San Francisco had come the news of his mother's death;
she had left him some money--not much, but enough to set him up in
business; so he had cut loose from the charlatan and had opened his
"Dental Parlors" on Polk Street, an "accommodation street" of small
shops in the residence quarter of the town. Here he had slowly
collected a clientele of butcher boys, shop girls, drug clerks, and car
conductors. He made but few acquaintances. Polk Street called him the
"Doctor" and spoke of his enormous strength. For McTeague was a young
giant, carrying his huge shock of blond hair six feet three inches
from the ground; moving his immense limbs, heavy with ropes of muscle,
slowly, ponderously.
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