That oily-tongued , persuasive , soft-stepping stranger in the rusty Prince Albert and the black string tie who had been wont to haunt our back steps and front offices with his carefully wrapped bundle , retreated retreat in bewildered defeat defeat before the clanging blows blow of steel on steel that meant the erection erection of the first twenty-story skyscraper .

He stood framed in the great plate-glass window of the very building which had brought about the defeat defeat of his predecessor .