said, "Well, Carl Saddle. How are you, man? Nice to see you."

Callahan was a big man, heavy-set, with bright blue eyes, and a shock of
light-brown hair. For all his bulk he moved lightly as befitted a former
stroke on the Penn crew. I was fond of Callahan, even with all the
trouble his inventions caused me; I knew he couldn't help it. I said,
"Hello Henry. How have you been?" And we exchanged some more amenities.

Finally he said, "Carl, we have quite a problem here, and we don't know
what to do about it. Here's the situation."

I swallowed, and took out my notebook and pencil, and laid my pocket
slide rule in front of me. I always put the slide rule out where the
inventor can see it to remind him that he is talking to another
technical man, not just a lawyer. This helps make him stick to the
facts. I didn't need the rule with Callahan, but habit is hard to break.

Callahan said, "Some time ago I made a polyester, used adipic acid and
an amino alcohol. On a hunch I dropped in an aluminum alkyl, and then
pushed the polymerization along with both ultraviolet and heat. Got a
stiff gel out of the pot and drew it into a quarter of a pound of
fibers. I only had time to determine that the fibers were amorphous--no
time to draw them further to see if they would develop crystallinity. I
put them in an open-mouth jar which I later found had been used to store
mercury. One evening I took them out and found they had developed
crystallinity on standing. Furthermore, the fibrous ends had split, and
the split ends seemed to be tacky--seemed a natural to me to make a
sheet of paper out of it."

I nodded as I worked furiously on my notes. All of Marchare's people
talked that way. They did the most fantastic things sometimes, and then
talked about them as if anyone would have done the same thing. I had
complained about this oddity to Mr. Spardleton when I first came to work
for him; I was used to inventions that were made in understandable ways.
He had smiled and asked me to quote the last sentence of 35 U.S.C. 103,
the statute that set forth the conditions for patentability. It was a
good thing I had memorized the statute. I recited the last sentence,
"Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the
invention is made." Well, here it was again.

I asked Callahan, "Did you make a sheet of paper out of it?"

"Sure did. Made a hand sheet in a twelve-by-twelve inch mold. Pressed it
out, dried it, then got busy again