There was a cry, the mulatto staggered and fell with the falling piano, and its weight dropped squarely upon his thigh, which broke with a resounding crack.
An hour later McTeague had found his job.

The music store engaged him as handler at six dollars a week.

McTeague's enormous strength, useless all his life, stood him in good stead at last.
He slept in a tiny back room opening from the storeroom of the music store.

He was in some sense a watchman as well as handler, and went the rounds of the store twice every night.

His room was a box of a place that reeked with odors of stale tobacco smoke.