McTeague, a “young giant” whose mind and body are “heavy, slow to act, [and] sluggish” (3), enjoys his typical Sunday routine of eating dinner at the car conductors’ coffeehouse and then drinking a beer in the second-story apartment that is both his “Dental Parlors” and his home. He ponders the daily rituals he observes outside on Polk Street. He also thinks of his mother, “an overworked drudge” who, after the passing of McTeague’s alcoholic father, helped McTeague gain the tutelage of a “charlatan” dentist and at her own death left him enough money to establish his “Dental Parlors” (2). His dream is to own “a huge gilded tooth” (4) to advertise his business.

McTeague is joined in his room by Marcus Schouler, a quick-tempered veterinary assistant who lives in the apartment above. After having a beer together, during which time Marcus impresses McTeague by pontificating with “stock phrases” and “half-truths of political economy” (13), Marcus says he is sending his cousin Trina, whom it is understood he will marry, to see McTeague, for she fell out of a swing and knocked out a tooth.