Trina had a tamale and a glass of beer, Mrs.Heise (who was a decayed writing teacher) ate salads, with glasses of grenadine and currant syrups.

Heise drank cocktails and whiskey straight, and urged the dentist to join him.

But McTeague was obstinate, shaking his head.
"I can't drink that stuff," he said.

"It don't agree with me, somehow; I go kinda crazy after two glasses." So he gorged himself with beer and frankfurter sausages plastered with German mustard.
When the annual Mechanic's Fair opened, McTeague and Trina often spent their evenings there, studying the exhibits carefully (since in Trina's estimation education meant knowing things and being able to talk about them).

Wearying of this they would go up into the gallery, and, leaning over, look down into the huge amphitheatre full of light and color and movement.
There rose to them the vast shuffling noise of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of conversation like the sound of a great mill.