" 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."
"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.
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