Then, all of a sudden, he slipped back into the old habits (that had been his before he knew Trina) with an ease that was surprising.

Sundays he dined at the car conductors' coffee-joint once more, and spent the afternoon lying full length upon the bed, crop-full, stupid, warm, smoking his huge pipe, drinking his steam beer, and playing his six mournful tunes upon his concertina, dozing off to sleep towards four o'clock.
The sale of their furniture had, after paying the rent and outstanding bills, netted about a hundred and thirty dollars.

Trina believed that the auctioneer from the second-hand store had swindled and cheated them and had made a great outcry to no effect.

But she had arranged the affair with the auctioneer herself, and offset her disappointment in the matter of the sale by deceiving her husband as to the real amount of the returns.

It was easy to lie to McTeague, who took everything for granted; and since the occasion of her trickery with the money that was to have been sent to her mother, Trina had found falsehood easier than ever.
"Seventy dollars is all the auctioneer gave me," she told her husband; "and after paying the balance due on the rent, and the grocer's bill, there's only fifty left." "Only fifty ?" murmured McTeague, wagging his head, "only fifty?
Think of that." "Only fifty," declared Trina.