ten o'clock
It was his ambition , his dream , to have projecting from that corner window a huge gilded tooth , a molar with enormous prongs , something gorgeous and attractive . He would have it some day , but as yet it was far beyond his means . '' Then Mr. Norris launches into a description of the street in which `` McTeague '' lives . He presents that street as it is on Sunday , as it is on working days ; as it is in the early dawn when the workmen are going out with pickaxes on their shoulders , as it is at ten o'clock when the women are out purchasing from the small shopkeepers , as it is at night when the shop girls are out with the soda-fountain tenders and the motor cars dash by full of theatre-goers , and the Salvationists sing before the saloon on the corner . In four pages he reproduces the life in a by-street of a great city , the little tragedy of the small shopkeeper . There are many ways of handling environment -- most of them bad . When a young author has very little to say and no story worth telling , he resorts to environment .