"This settles it right here. I've done with you. Don't you ever dare
speak to me again"--his voice was shaking with fury--"and don't you sit
at my table in the restaurant again. I'm sorry I ever lowered myself
to keep company with such dirt. Ah, one-horse dentist! Ah, ten-cent
zinc-plugger--hoodlum--MUCKER! Get your damn smoke outa my face."
Then matters reached a sudden climax. In his agitation the dentist had
been pulling hard on his pipe, and as Marcus for the last time thrust
his face close to his own, McTeague, in opening his lips to reply,
blew a stifling, acrid cloud directly in Marcus Schouler's eyes. Marcus
knocked the pipe from his fingers with a sudden flash of his hand; it
spun across the room and broke into a dozen fragments in a far corner.
McTeague rose to his feet, his eyes wide. But as yet he was not angry,
only surprised, taken all aback by the suddenness of Marcus Schouler's
outbreak as well as by its unreasonableness. Why had Marcus broken his
pipe? What did it all mean, anyway? As he rose the dentist made a vague
motion with his right hand. Did Marcus misinterpret it as a gesture of
menace? He sprang back as though avoiding a blow. All at once there was
a cry.
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