I'm sorry I ever lowered myself to keep company with such dirt.

Ah, one-horse dentist! Ah, ten-cent zinc-plugger--hoodlum--MUCKER! Get your damn smoke outa my face." Then matters reached a sudden climax.

In his agitation the dentist had been pulling hard on his pipe, and as Marcus for the last time thrust his face close to his own, McTeague, in opening his lips to reply, blew a stifling, acrid cloud directly in Marcus Schouler's eyes.

Marcus knocked the pipe from his fingers with a sudden flash of his hand; it spun across the room and broke into a dozen fragments in a far corner.
McTeague rose to his feet, his eyes wide.

But as yet he was not angry, only surprised, taken all aback by the suddenness of Marcus Schouler's outbreak as well as by its unreasonableness.