in a purposeful, quiet voice, "I think I see clearly how
this case should be handled in this situation. I shall prepare it in
that manner, and file it, and prosecute it, and obtain a strong patent
on a pathfinder invention. I'll keep you posted." I turned and walked
out. Just as I passed through the door I thought I heard him say softly,
"Attaboy, Carl," but I must have been mistaken. Mr. Spardleton never
calls me Carl.

* * *

I got right at it the very next morning. I opened the office myself and
began studying my notes to see how broad a claim I could write for the
Tearproof Paper Case. I listed all the ingredients in one column, and
then filled up the adjacent columns with all the possible substitutes I
could think of. I didn't even know it when Susan arrived at the office,
stood in my doorway for a moment, and then tip-toed away. Later on Mr.
Spardleton looked in on me, and I wasn't aware of that, either. It was
ten o'clock before I finally came up for air, and then I dashed out to
the Marchare Laboratory for another talk with Callahan. I explained how
I was going to handle the case to make sure we got a good, broad patent
application into the Patent Office.

"Can you do that?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. We can put in all the things we think will work, but if we are
wrong we are in some degree of trouble. But I feel that with both of us
working on this we ought to be able to turn out a good sound job. I'll
keep sending you drafts out in San Francisco until we finally get one we
think good enough to file. But we can't waste time. This is a hot one,
and we want to get it in as soon as possible."

He shrugged his shoulders, and we sat down to work on my lists. Neither
one of us realized it when lunch time came and went. But that's the way
it is with world-beater inventions; they sweep you along. Early that
afternoon I dictated my first draft to Susan. Callahan and I went over
the draft, and then he left for San Francisco. The next time around we
had to use air mail. With each new draft we added more to the basic
information we had, rounding out the invention in ever greater detail. I
added example after example, being careful to state them in the present
tense; I did not want to give the impression that the examples had
actually been run.

In a month's time I checked with John Bostick. Bostick had been able to
duplicate Callahan's work, and we had three more, flimsy, diaphanous
sheets that could no