Cockroaches appeared in the crevices of the woodwork, the wall-paper bulged from the damp walls and began to peel.

Trina had long ago ceased to dust or to wipe the furniture with a bit of rag.

The grime grew thick upon the window panes and in the corners of the room.

All the filth of the alley invaded their quarters like a rising muddy tide.
Between the windows, however, the faded photograph of the couple in their wedding finery looked down upon the wretchedness, Trina still holding her set bouquet straight before her, McTeague standing at her side, his left foot forward, in the attitude of a Secretary of State; while near by hung the canary, the one thing the dentist clung to obstinately, piping and chittering all day in its little gilt prison.
And the tooth, the gigantic golden molar of French gilt, enormous and ungainly, sprawled its branching prongs in one corner of the room, by the footboard of the bed.

The McTeague's had come to use it as a sort of substitute for a table.