As often as he had a moment to spare he went down the street to the nearest saloon and drank a pony of whiskey.

Now and then as he fought and struggled with the vast masses of ebony, rosewood, and mahogany on the upper floor of the music store, raging and chafing at their inertness and unwillingness, while the whiskey pirouetted in his brain, he would mutter to himself: "An' I got to do this.

I got to work like a dray horse while she sits at home by her stove and counts her money--and sells my concertina." Six o'clock came.

Instead of supper, McTeague drank some more whiskey, five ponies in rapid succession.

After supper he was obliged to go out with the dray to deliver a concert grand at the Odd Fellows' Hall, where a piano "recital" was to take place.
"Ain't you coming back with us ?" asked one of the handlers as he climbed upon the driver's seat after the piano had been put in place.
"No, no," returned the dentist; "I got something else to do." The brilliant lights of a saloon near the City Hall caught his eye.