In these first months of their misfortunes the routine of the McTeagues
was as follows: They rose at seven and breakfasted in their room,
Trina cooking the very meagre meal on an oil stove. Immediately after
breakfast Trina sat down to her work of whittling the Noah's ark
animals, and McTeague took himself off to walk down town. He had by the
greatest good luck secured a position with a manufacturer of surgical
instruments, where his manual dexterity in the making of excavators,
pluggers, and other dental contrivances stood him in fairly good stead.
He lunched at a sailor's boarding-house near the water front, and in the
afternoon worked till six. He was home at six-thirty, and he and Trina
had supper together in the "ladies' dining parlor," an adjunct of
the car conductors' coffee-joint. Trina, meanwhile, had worked at her
whittling all day long, with but half an hour's interval for lunch,
which she herself prepared upon the oil stove. In the evening they were
both so tired that they were in no mood for conversation, and went to
bed early, worn out, harried, nervous, and cross.
Trina was not quite so scrupulously tidy now as in the old days. At one
time while whittling the Noah's ark animals she had worn gloves.
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