n something like it at work with
some of my friends just before they get married. They think their brides
are just about the most beautiful women in the world, when they are
really quite homely--wouldn't even hold a candle to our Susan here."

Mr. Spardleton looked at me and then at Susan, and Susan looked at him
and then at me in that sober wide-eyed way she has, and then they looked
at each other and smiled. I guess they realized that I had said
something pretty funny.

Mr. Spardleton said, "I understand why you think of the situation in
terms of brides, but I always think of it in terms of a proud father who
sees nothing but perfection in his newborn son."

"Yes," I said, "that's a good way to put it, too."

"There are," he continued through a cloud of gentle smoke, "two
different ways in which a patent case can get away from the attorney.
The first doesn't happen very often, but when it does it has a tendency
to set the world on fire. That's the case that has true merit to
it--high invention, if you will--but the invention is so subtle that
nobody can see its importance. Only the attorney who wraps the case
around his heart can appreciate its vast potential. He goes through the
prosecution before the Patent Office and possibly before the courts
shouting high praises of the invention, but all the tribunals turn a
deaf ear. Sometimes the attorney finally reaches Nirvana; the invention
comes into its own. It shakes the world, just as the attorney had always
known it would."

I nodded and said, "Elias Howe and his sewing machine, McCormick and his
reaper, Colt and his pistol." Mr. Spardleton had taught me well.

"The other way is more common," he continued. "There the attorney never
sees the case in its true light. He is blinded by something in it and
thinks it is greater than it is. He wastes a lot of time trying to
persuade everybody that this very ordinary invention is the wonder of
the decade. He thinks of the invention the way a father does of a
wayward son--he sees none of its faults, only its virtues, and he
magnifies those."

I shifted into a more comfortable position in my deep chair. Mr.
Spardleton must have thought I was going to say something. He looked at
me and added hastily, "Or rather, as you'd have it, the way a bridegroom
looks at his prospective bride. That better?"

"Oh yes. Those fellows are really blinded. They just can't see anything
the way it really is."

Mr. Spardleton said, "Most pa