Once the morning meal over, McTeague bestirred himself, put on his cap--he had given up wearing even a hat since his wife had made him sell his silk hat--and went out.

He had fallen into the habit of taking long and solitary walks beyond the suburbs of the city.

Sometimes it was to the Cliff House, occasionally to the Park (where he would sit on the sun-warmed benches, smoking his pipe and reading ragged ends of old newspapers), but more often it was to the Presidio Reservation.

McTeague would walk out to the end of the Union Street car line, entering the Reservation at the terminus, then he would work down to the shore of the bay, follow the shore line to the Old Fort at the Golden Gate, and, turning the Point here, come out suddenly upon the full sweep of the Pacific.

Then he would follow the beach down to a certain point of rocks that he knew.