It was a
little after eleven o'clock. The night was moonless, filled with a gray
blur of faint light that seemed to come from all quarters of the horizon
at once. From time to time there were sudden explosions of a southeast
wind at the street corners. McTeague went on, slanting his head against
the gusts, to keep his cap from blowing off, carrying the sack close to
his side. Once he looked critically at the sky.
"I bet it'll rain to-morrow," he muttered, "if this wind works round to
the south."
Once in his little den behind the music store, he washed his hands and
forearms, and put on his working clothes, blue overalls and a
jumper, over cheap trousers and vest. Then he got together his small
belongings--an old campaign hat, a pair of boots, a tin of tobacco,
and a pinchbeck bracelet which he had found one Sunday in the Park, and
which he believed to be valuable. He stripped his blanket from his bed
and rolled up in it all these objects, together with the canvas sack,
fastening the roll with a half hitch such as miners use, the instincts
of the old-time car-boy coming back to him in his present confusion
of mind. He changed his pipe and his knife--a huge jackknife with a
yellowed bone handle--to the pockets of his overalls.
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