Occasionally they met Heise the harness-maker and his wife, with
whom they had become acquainted. Then the evening was concluded by a
four-cornered party in the Luxembourg, a quiet German restaurant under
a theatre. Trina had a tamale and a glass of beer, Mrs. Heise (who was
a decayed writing teacher) ate salads, with glasses of grenadine and
currant syrups. Heise drank cocktails and whiskey straight, and urged
the dentist to join him. But McTeague was obstinate, shaking his head.
"I can't drink that stuff," he said. "It don't agree with me, somehow;
I go kinda crazy after two glasses." So he gorged himself with beer and
frankfurter sausages plastered with German mustard.
When the annual Mechanic's Fair opened, McTeague and Trina often spent
their evenings there, studying the exhibits carefully (since in Trina's
estimation education meant knowing things and being able to talk about
them). Wearying of this they would go up into the gallery, and, leaning
over, look down into the huge amphitheatre full of light and color and
movement.
There rose to them the vast shuffling noise of thousands of feet and
a subdued roar of conversation like the sound of a great mill. Mingled
with this was the purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a
temporary fountain, and the rhythmic jangling of a brass band, while
in the piano exhibit a hired performer was playing upon a concert
grand with a great flourish.
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