It was a little after eleven o'clock.

The night was moonless, filled with a gray blur of faint light that seemed to come from all quarters of the horizon at once.

From time to time there were sudden explosions of a southeast wind at the street corners.

McTeague went on, slanting his head against the gusts, to keep his cap from blowing off, carrying the sack close to his side.

Once he looked critically at the sky.
"I bet it'll rain to-morrow," he muttered, "if this wind works round to the south." Once in his little den behind the music store, he washed his hands and forearms, and put on his working clothes, blue overalls and a jumper, over cheap trousers and vest.