CHAPTER 14
“Well, what do you think?” said Trina.
She and McTeague stood in a tiny room at the back of the flat and on its very top floor. The room was whitewashed. It contained a bed, three cane-seated chairs, and a wooden washstand with its washbowl and pitcher. From its single uncurtained window one looked down into the flat's dirty back yard and upon the roofs of the hovels that bordered the alley in the rear. There was a rag carpet on the floor. In place of a closet some dozen wooden pegs were affixed to the wall over the washstand. There was a smell of cheap soap and of ancient hair-oil in the air.
“That's a single bed,” said Trina, “but the landlady says she'll put in a double one for us. You see——”
“I ain't going to live here,” growled McTeague.
“Well, you've got to live somewhere,” said Trina, impatiently. “We've looked Polk Street over, and this is the only thing we can afford.”
“Afford, afford,” muttered the dentist. “You with your five thousand dollars, and the two or three hundred you got saved up, talking about 'afford.' You make me sick.”
“Now, Mac,” exclaimed Trina, deliberately, sitting down in one of the cane-seated chairs; “now, Mac, let's have this thing——”
“Well, I don't figure on living in one room,” growled the dentist, sullenly. “Let's live decently until we can get a fresh start. We've got the money.”
“Who's got the money?”