Wilfred’s particular job was to open the corridor door when anyone knocked. He would open it a crack first, with his foot behind it, while he reconnoitred. So far there had never been any excitement. Nothing was painted on the door but the number of the room, 47; and this password, was given out only to Mr. Gore’s friends. Occasionally a crank or a begging widow took a chance and knocked: that was all. In the beginning Wilfred had speculated on what he would do should an anarchist burst in with a bomb in a satchel. That had happened to Russell Sage, once. Wilfred had made up a story about it, in which he played a heroic part; but it was not one of his best stories. Mr. Gore’s big roll-top desk was turned cater-cornered. The door into his brother’s office was at his hand in case _he_ wanted to make a quick getaway. When he was seated at his desk, Wilfred could see no more than the thin lock of hair which waved on his forehead, and his sulky eyes when he raised them. Mr. Dobereiner’s desk was in the other front corner; Wilfred’s desk in one of the back corners. One could have given a ball in the middle of the room. The great chance of his life! his aunts called it; being placed so close to a millionaire. How Wilfred hated it! Day after day he felt as if there was some foul stuff smoldering in his breast, the fumes of which were slowly suffocating him. So much had been made of this job, he couldn’t conceive of any escape from it. The whole millionaire atmosphere; the bluff, man-to-man air which the cleverest of Mr. Gore’s creatures had learned to adopt towards their master; he hated it. The private secretary, Dobereiner was an out and out toady and lick-spittle; Wilfred didn’t mind him; it was the fine gentlemen; the various stockbrokers; corporation officials; dummy directors and so on; Ugh! Loathsome! Mr. Gore was a good enough employer; liberal; he was rather a fool behind his big front, and Wilfred could have liked him under other circumstances. Millionaire and office boy preserved a distant air towards each other. Wilfred took care to keep the lashes lowered over his resentful eyes. He kept his employer’s check-books and accounts; thus he knew that Mr. Gore’s income amounted to more than seven hundred thousand dollars a year. It made the office boy grind his teeth.