If the enraged victim stalked off, Da Vincelleo howled with glee. And if a lawsuit followed, he had ways of scaring the unhappy wretch into withdrawing it. The office help--including the thirty vice-presidents--earned big salaries largely because they boasted iron nerves and ulcer-resistant stomachs. After their initiation into Da Vincelleo's extraordinary humor, many of them became quite sedate about the embarrassing noises and odors they seemingly made when they sat down on their chairs. They even regarded with the classic calm of the clam's eye the lightbulbs that exploded and flew apart, the mechanical mice, the cockroaches that jumped out of opened drawers, and the water-faucets that straightened out, and squirted them in the face. The few who couldn't take it ceased drawing fabulous salaries, and retired to rest homes. As it was, none of these disturbing things interfered with Revanche's progress. He didn't even pause on entering the Sanctum Sanctorum itself. II Da Vincelleo was sitting behind a large desk with a Cellini-exquisite reading lamp at his elbow. He was clad only in a pair of businessman's electric-blue shorts, and a scarlet beret. His forehead was lofty and square, a beautifully sculptured Greek temple dedicated to Thought. But the face that hung beneath was a fox's, and the eyes were twin furnaces, red-rimmed and smouldering. Sometimes beauty burned phoenix-like in them--more often, dollar bills. Da Vincelleo barely had time to swing the tape-thrower back into its cabinet. He had just finished reviewing a case history of Revanche's life. His agents had done a superb job on Revanche. He knew more about the great financier than that complex man himself, for included in the report were the opinions of ten top-flight psychiatrists. Despite the fact that each of the reports was contradictory, the master of Bioid felt he had an excellent looksee into his rival's psyche. The Messinan had painstakingly studied Revanche's psych index as a child. He knew that the formative years counted most, for the child was father to the man. Understanding what kind of youngster Revanche had been gave him an advantage from the start. Therefore, when the magnate bounced bristling into his office, he remained seated, sure that he had the upper hand. B. T. faced him for a moment without greeting him, giving him the famous "once-over," the scanning that had made strong men shake. His eyes were as hard as a Bioid's. His nose had been heavily powdered, so that the tiny line which circled its tip would be concealed. The cleavage betrayed the artificiality of the tip, which was made of plastiskin. Revanche let his eyes crawl up and down his host like measuring worms. Then, abruptly, frankly, he came to the point of his visit. His request, and the whirlwind fury with which he thrust it, shook Da Vincelleo out of his sureness, brought him to his feet with a gasp.