"Five thousand dollars. Who would have thought it? It's wonderful."
Everybody started and turned. It was McTeague. He stood in the middle of
the floor, wagging his huge head. He seemed to have just realized what
had happened.
"Yes, sir, five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Marcus, with a sudden
unaccountable mirthlessness. "Five thousand dollars! Do you get on to
that? Cousin Trina and you will be rich people."
"At six per cent, that's twenty-five dollars a month," hazarded the
agent.
"Think of it. Think of it," muttered McTeague. He went aimlessly about
the room, his eyes wide, his enormous hands dangling.
"A cousin of mine won forty dollars once," observed Miss Baker. "But he
spent every cent of it buying more tickets, and never won anything."
Then the reminiscences began. Maria told about the butcher on the next
block who had won twenty dollars the last drawing. Mrs. Sieppe knew a
gasfitter in Oakland who had won several times; once a hundred dollars.
Little Miss Baker announced that she had always believed that lotteries
were wrong; but, just the same, five thousand was five thousand.
"It's all right when you win, ain't it, Miss Baker?" observed Marcus,
with a certain sarcasm.
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