"I wonder what it was," muttered the dentist.

"There was something--why did I wake up?
Huh ?" He made a circuit about the bunk house, unusually alert, his small eyes twinkling rapidly, seeing everything.

All was quiet.

An old dog who invariably slept on the steps of the bunk house had not even wakened.

McTeague went back to bed, but did not sleep.
"There was SOMETHING," he muttered, looking in a puzzled way at his canary in the cage that hung from the wall at his bedside; "something.
What was it?
There is something NOW.