The letter — or rather printed notice — informed McTeague that he had never received a diploma from a dental college, and that in consequence he was forbidden to practise his profession any longer. A legal extract bearing upon the case was attached in small type.
"Why, what's all this?" said Trina, calmly, without thought as yet.
"I don' know, I don' know," answered her husband.
"You can't practise any longer," continued Trina, — "'is herewith prohibited and enjoined from further continuing—'" She re-read the extract, her forehead lifting and puckering. She put the sponge carefully away in its wire rack over the sink, and drew up a chair to the table, spreading out the notice before her. "Sit down," she said to McTeague. "Draw up to the table here, Mac, and let's see what this is."
"I got it this morning," murmured the dentist. "It just now came. I was making some fillings — there, in the 'Parlors,' in the window — and the postman shoved it through the door. I thought it was a number of the 'American System of Dentistry' at first, and when I'd opened it and looked at it I thought I'd better—"
"Say, Mac," interrupted Trina, looking up from the notice, "DIDN'T you ever go to a dental college?"
"Huh? What? What?" exclaimed McTeague.
"How did you learn to be a dentist? Did you go to a college?"
"I went along with a fellow who came to the mine once. My mother sent me. We used to go from one camp to another. I sharpened his excavators for him, and put up his notices in the towns — stuck them up in the post-offices and on the doors of the Odd Fellows' halls. He had a wagon."
"But didn't you never go to a college?"