At ten o’clock he arrived at the Banner Building, a plain, grimy structure in anundistinguished neighborhood of lower Manhattan. When he walked through thenarrow halls of the building, the employees he met wished him a good morning.The greeting was correct and he answered courteously; but his passage had theeffect of a death ray that stopped the motor of living organisms.Among the many hard rules imposed upon the employees of all Wynand enterprises,the hardest was the one demanding that no man pause in his work if Mr. Wynandentered the room, or notice his entrance. Nobody could predict what departmenthe would choose to visit or when. He could appear at any moment in any part ofthe building--and his presence was as unobtrusive as an electric shock. Theemployees tried to obey the rule as best they could; but they preferred threehours of overtime to ten minutes of working under his silent observation.
