McTeague dropped his blanket roll on a lumber
pile outside, and came up and knocked at the open door. Some one called
to him to come in.
McTeague entered, rolling his eyes about him, noting the changes that
had been made since he had last seen this place. A partition had been
knocked down, making one big room out of the two former small ones. A
counter and railing stood inside the door. There was a telephone on the
wall. In one corner he also observed a stack of surveyor's instruments;
a big drawing-board straddled on spindle legs across one end of the
room, a mechanical drawing of some kind, no doubt the plan of the
mine, unrolled upon it; a chromo representing a couple of peasants in a
ploughed field (Millet's "Angelus") was nailed unframed upon the wall,
and hanging from the same wire nail that secured one of its corners in
place was a bullion bag and a cartridge belt with a loaded revolver in
the pouch.
The dentist approached the counter and leaned his elbows upon it. Three
men were in the room--a tall, lean young man, with a thick head of hair
surprisingly gray, who was playing with a half-grown great Dane puppy;
another fellow about as young, but with a jaw almost as salient as
McTeague's, stood at the letter-press taking a copy of a letter; a third
man, a little older than the other two, was pottering over a transit.
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