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?"
"Huh? What? College? No, I never went. I learned from the fellow."
Trina rolled down her sleeves. She was a little paler than usual. She fastened the b.u.t.tons into the cuffs and said:
"But do you know you can"t practise unless you"re graduated from a college? You haven"t the right to call yourself, "doctor.""
McTeague stared a moment; then:
"Why, I"ve been practising ten years. More--nearly twelve."
"But it"s the law."
"What"s the law?"
"That you can"t practise, or call yourself doctor, unless you"ve got a diploma."
"What"s that--a diploma?"
"I don"t know exactly. It"s a kind of paper that--that--oh, Mac, we"re ruined." Trina"s voice rose to a cry.
"What do you mean, Trina? Ain"t I a dentist? Ain"t I a doctor? Look at my sign, and the gold tooth you gave me. Why, I"ve been practising nearly twelve years."
Trina shut her lips tightly, cleared her throat, and pretended to resettle a hair-pin at the back of her head.
"I guess it isn"t as bad as that," she said, very quietly. "Let"s read this again. "Herewith prohibited and enjoined from further continuing----"" She read to the end.
"Why, it isn"t possible," she cried. "They can"t mean--oh, Mac, I do believe--pshaw!" she exclaimed, her pale face flushing. "They don"t know how good a dentist you are. What difference does a diploma make, if you"re a first-cla.s.s dentist? I guess that"s all right. Mac, didn"t you ever go to a dental college?"
"No," answered McTeague, doggedly. "What was the good? I learned how to operate; wa"n"t that enough?"
"Hark," said Trina, suddenly. "Wasn"t that the bell of your office?"
They had both heard the jangling of the bell that McTeague had hung over the door of his "Parlors." The dentist looked at the kitchen clock.
"That"s Vanovitch," said he. "He"s a plumber round on Sutter Street.
He"s got an appointment with me to have a bicuspid pulled. I got to go back to work." He rose.
"But you can"t," cried Trina, the back of her hand upon her lips, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g. "Mac, don"t you see? Can"t you understand? You"ve got to stop. Oh, it"s dreadful! Listen." She hurried around the table to him and caught his arm in both her hands.
"Huh?" growled McTeague, looking at her with a puzzled frown.
"They"ll arrest you. You"ll go to prison. You can"t work--can"t work any more. We"re ruined."
Vanovitch was pounding on the door of the sitting-room.
"He"ll be gone in a minute," exclaimed McTeague.
"Well, let him go. Tell him to go; tell him to come again."
"Why, he"s got an APPOINTMENT with me," exclaimed McTeague, his hand upon the door.
Trina caught him back. "But, Mac, you ain"t a dentist any longer; you ain"t a doctor. You haven"t the right to work. You never went to a dental college."
"Well, suppose I never went to a college, ain"t I a dentist just the same? Listen, he"s pounding there again. No, I"m going, sure."
"Well, of course, go," said Trina, with sudden reaction. "It ain"t possible they"ll make you stop. If you"re a good dentist, that"s all that"s wanted. Go on, Mac; hurry, before he goes."
McTeague went out, closing the door. Trina stood for a moment looking intently at the bricks at her feet. Then she returned to the table, and sat down again before the notice, and, resting her head in both her fists, read it yet another time. Suddenly the conviction seized upon her that it was all true. McTeague would be obliged to stop work, no matter how good a dentist he was. But why had the authorities at the City Hall waited this long before serving the notice? All at once Trina snapped her fingers, with a quick flash of intelligence.
"It"s Marcus that"s done it," she cried.
It was like a clap of thunder. McTeague was stunned, stupefied. He said nothing. Never in his life had he been so taciturn. At times he did not seem to hear Trina when she spoke to him, and often she had to shake him by the shoulder to arouse his attention. He would sit apart in his "Parlors," turning the notice about in his enormous clumsy fingers, reading it stupidly over and over again. He couldn"t understand. What had a clerk at the City Hall to do with him? Why couldn"t they let him alone?
"Oh, what"s to become of us NOW?" wailed Trina. "What"s to become of us now? We"re paupers, beggars--and all so sudden." And once, in a quick, inexplicable fury, totally unlike anything that McTeague had noticed in her before, she had started up, with fists and teeth shut tight, and had cried, "Oh, if you"d only KILLED Marcus Schouler that time he fought you!"
McTeague had continued his work, acting from sheer force of habit; his sluggish, deliberate nature, methodical, obstinate, refusing to adapt itself to the new conditions.
"Maybe Marcus was only trying to scare us," Trina had said. "How are they going to know whether you"re practising or not?"
"I got a mould to make to-morrow," McTeague said, "and Vanovitch, that plumber round on Sutter Street, he"s coming again at three."
"Well, you go right ahead," Trina told him, decisively; "you go right ahead and make the mould, and pull every tooth in Vanovitch"s head if you want to. Who"s going to know? Maybe they just sent that notice as a matter of form. Maybe Marcus got that paper and filled it in himself."
The two would lie awake all night long, staring up into the dark, talking, talking, talking.
"Haven"t you got any right to practise if you"ve not been to a dental college, Mac? Didn"t you ever go?" Trina would ask again and again.
"No, no," answered the dentist, "I never went. I learnt from the fellow I was apprenticed to. I don" know anything about a dental college. Ain"t I got a right to do as I like?" he suddenly exclaimed.