The Project Gutenberg eBook of The magnificent profession
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Title: The magnificent profession
Author: Theodore L. Thomas
Illustrator: Mel Hunter
Release date: January 23, 2026 [eBook #77756]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: King-Size Publications, Inc, 1955
Credits: Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAGNIFICENT PROFESSION ***
The Magnificent Profession
by Leonard Lockhard
_Leonard Lockhard is an experienced patents attorney who can slip the
glovelike surfaces of an inventor’s nightmare on his writing hand
with a dexterity glorious to behold. We suspect he even does so in
his dreams, chuckling right merrily until the dawn breaks through.
You’ll chuckle too, we think, at one of the most uproariously funny
SF yarns it has ever been our privilege to publish._
=Krome was Mr. Patent Office in person--and a hard man to needle. But
Marchare’s underground diving suit had a very sharp point to it.=
The interoffice buzzer on my phone rang. It was Helix Spardleton,
patent attorney extraordinary--and my boss.
“Saddle?” Helix said. “Marchare is on the phone. Take care of him, will
you?” And he hung up.
For a moment I just sat there, phone in hand. Marchare! My palms were
suddenly moist. Other patent lawyers had nice normal scientists to work
with--people who invented new and patentable plastics, pharmaceuticals,
and insecticides.
I had Marchare. My mind ran back over some of his inventions--synthetic
babies, supersonic washing machines, hair-growing chemicals.
Collectively they had netted him a small fortune, but they had brought
nothing but headaches to me. Now he was on the phone again. Another
invention undoubtedly.
My forefinger shook a little as I stabbed it at the lighted button on
the phone. “Saddle speaking,” I said.
“Good morning, Carl!” came cheerily. “This is Marchare. You sound a
little weak. You’re not ill, I hope?”
“Well, I’m not feeling exactly--”
“Glad to hear it. Look, I wonder if you could drop over at my lab. I’ve
run across something interesting, and I think we ought to investigate
the patent possibilities.”
I swallowed dryly. “What is it?”
“A diving suit.”
I pondered his reply suspiciously. Was it conceivable that “Doc”
had finally thought up a beautiful routine invention for me to work
with--one that wouldn’t get me all fouled up with the Patent Office? It
wasn’t too likely. Still--a diving suit. How could I get into trouble
with a mere diving suit? Surely I was on safe ground there.
I said, “Fine, Doc. Shall I come over now?”
“The sooner the better,” he replied. “I’ll wait for you.”
“Is there anything I should bring along? The camera?”
“Your notebook is all you’ll need,” he assured me. “I’m not yet ready
to test it underground. See you soon.” He hung up.
I hung up myself and had half risen from my desk when I suddenly
stiffened. _Underground._ His diving suit worked underground! I was
plenty startled, but as I thought it over I decided that Marchare
must have been mistaken. He’d meant _underwater_--just a slip of the
tongue. Sure, that was it. Who ever heard of a diving suit that went
underground? It was too fantastic.
I felt better almost immediately. I got my hat and notebook and went
out into the bright sunshine and hailed a cab.
On the way to Marchare’s laboratory I did some thinking. He was a
brilliant man capable of almost anything, a man who seldom made
mistakes. His tongue wouldn’t slip--not on a thing like that. If he
said underground he meant underground. It was a statement I had to
accept.
By the time the cab pulled up in front of Marchare’s laboratory in
Alexandria I knew exactly where I stood. I knew for sure that he had
gone and invented a diving suit that would go underground.
“Doc” Marchare was dressed in his usual clothes, which is just another
way of saying he looked as though he’d only recently got back from an
unsuccessful, but jovial panhandling expedition.
“You got over here quickly, Carl. You’re anxious to get going, eh?”
I forced a sickly smile.
“That’s the spirit,” he said, thumping me on the shoulder. “Come along,
let’s have a look at it.”
He led me down the hall and into a cluttered work room where Hamilton
Eskew, his cadaverous assistant, was working on something that looked
like a large pair of coveralls.
Marchare said, “I’ll describe the suit to you, If you have any
questions just break in and ask them. It’s really quite simple.”
I said, “Uh-huh,” pulled out my notebook, flexed my fingers, and was
all set.
“Externally,” he said, “it closely resembles any self-contained
underwater suit. The body portion is all in one piece. The helmet
clamps down over the head, and the pack on the back contains the
power supply. Any power supply can be used so long as it delivers
approximately ten amperes at ten thousand volts for a reasonable period
of time.”
I scribbled busily. “Got it,” I told him.
“The current passes to a cabbagite crystal, then to a selector box, and
finally to the surface of the suit,” he went on. “Control dials mounted
inside the hands of the suit enable the operator to control the amount
of current at various places on the surface.”
I broke in, “Cabbagite sounds familiar. Precisely what is it?”
“Well,” said Marchare, “I’m not quite certain. Carbon, you see,
occurs in two allotropic crystalline forms--diamonds and graphite.
I’ve prepared a third allotrope that I call cabbagite. It is a
twinned crystal with peculiar properties, to say the least. When an
electromotive force is impressed at one end of it the other end emits
energy of varying wave lengths. The bombardment of this energy seems to
nullify the cohesive forces between the molecules of matter.
“Up until now the only use I could find for it was in transforming
oxygen to ozone. When you plug it into the wall socket, you have a
wonderful cabbage-cooking deodorizer, Spardleton filed a case on that
use a couple of years ago. A few weeks ago I discovered the crystal
had other possibilities. I’ve now discovered that it works on solid
matter as well as oxygen. The solid matter yields and flows when pushed
on by a conductive object that is connected to an activated cabbagite
crystal.”
I asked, “But how does the cabbagite crystal allow the diving suit to
move around underground--through solid earth?”
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Eskew was shaking his head
in sneering compassion for my slow-witted grasp of the technical
details. But Marchare didn’t mind a bit, having had long experience
with patent attorneys.
“Well,” he said, “the energy from the crystal goes first to a selector
unit. From there it passes to the surface of the suit by means of
thousands of tiny wire leads. These leads connect to a wire fabric
imbedded in the thin rubber from which the suit is made. Is that clear?”
“Of course,” I assured him loftily, ignoring Eskew’s subdued snicker.
“The control dials work this way,” continued Marchare. “Once the diver
is underground he can cut off the energy field beneath the soles of his
feet. Thus he will have something solid to stand on. When he walks,
though, he will have to keep the soles of his feet pointed away from
the direction of his advance, or retreat, because only the ground under
his soles will always be solid. Either that, or he can adjust the
controls each time he moves his foot.
“The control built into the right hand will control the right half of
the suit; the left-hand one will control the left, The energy field
over the rest of the suit isn’t so important as long as it is strong
enough to soften the surrounding earth. But even so we’re going to make
it possible for the diver to control the energy field on the entire
surface. That way he could even lie down if he wanted to.”
“Since you haven’t finished the suit yet,” I said, “how do you know it
will work?”
Eskew looked up at me as though I had just taken a dime from a
five-year-old.
Marchare never turned a hair. “Oh, it will work all right. We’ve
already made a great many tests. We’ve thrust objects through walls and
rocks and metals. Hamilton hasn’t actually finished the diving suit.
But when he does, you can rest assured it will come up to expectations.”
“What,” I asked, “happens to the diver if the crystal stops functioning
while he’s underground?”
“Now there’s a disturbing thought,” mused Marchare. “I guess the suit
would be lost. Gravity would pull it down to the center of the earth.”
Eskew cackled mirthlessly. “And would the diver be burned up.”
Marchare smiled indulgently. “A card, that Hamilton. Actually, there’d
be no pain. Ham has timed the air supply to fail long before the diver
can reach the center of the earth.”
* * * * *
The hair on the back of my neck relaxed a little. I forced myself to
consider only the legal aspects of the subject at hand. “When will the
suit be ready?” I asked.
“In about four months,” grunted Eskew. “Possibly a little sooner.”
“That’s good,” I told him. “I think the Patent Office may want a
demonstration. If I can prepare and file the application within the
next two weeks, the Office will probably take it up just about the time
the suit is ready.”
“What I don’t understand,” said Marchare, “is how we can file a patent
application on something that doesn’t yet exist. Won’t it be perjury
for me to sign the inventor’s oath?”
“That would depend on what oath you sign,” I told him. “Fortunately
there are two kinds. In one you swear that everything in the
application is true. In the second you merely swear that the object
described in the specifications is your invention. I never heard of any
inventor using the first kind. You don’t think Selden ever actually
_made_ the automobile he patented, do you?”
“I see,” he said, with an expression that said he didn’t at all.
I looked over my notes. Mr. Spardleton had previously explained that
it was useless to take notes on a new invention because the attorney’s
version never agreed with the inventor’s. What was even worse, neither
bore any resemblance to the hash the patent examiners would inevitably
make of it. My notes were sufficiently confused to gladden the heart of
any practicing patent attorney.
“Well, I guess that’s it,” I said.
I shook hands with Marchare, returned Eskew’s sneer cordially, and
headed back to town. Plans for the coming tussle with the Patent
Office were beginning to take shape in my head. But I foresaw no great
difficulty. This was _real_ invention. Imagine. A diving suit that
went underground. Even the Examiner would have to admit that this was
creative originality of the highest order. He couldn’t turn me down. He
wouldn’t dare.
When I got back to the office I went in and explained the whole thing
to Spardleton. He heard me all the way through without an interruption.
When I had exhausted my vocabulary of superlatives he sat quietly for a
moment thinking. Then he said, “Yes, it seems straightforward enough.
I’ll tell you what. Make a search and pull a couple of patents that
describe the usual diving suits. You will be able to use large portions
of the specifications.”
“How can I?” I asked. “Those patents will only describe diving suits
that go underwater. They won’t--”
He cut me off with an airy wave of his hand. “Whenever you hit the word
‘underwater,’ change it to ‘underground.’ When you hit the word ‘sea,’
change it to ‘ground’ or ‘earth.’ You’ll save a lot of time that way.
Okay, you’re on your own. But let me see the spec before you file it.”
I left and went over to the Patent Office to make the search. I flipped
through the patents in Class 2, Subclass 2.1, and selected two patents
to serve as models. I realized almost immediately that I’d be able to
use large portions of them. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
During the next ten days I wrote and re-wrote. I consulted with
Marchare on several occasions, and I worked closely with Eskew to make
sure that his drawings would be comprehensible to a man from Mars--or
a patent examiner. Even at lunch Susan, our secretary, and I talked
about the diving suit and hardly anything else. I ate, slept, and
breathed the suit. I became convinced that it was going to be a perfect
application. The Patent Office wouldn’t get to first base with its
exotic logic this time.
Susan was a gem. She never even frowned when I changed my mind several
times about how best to drive home a telling point. She just tore up
the old copy and made a new one from my dictation. Sometimes, though,
she had a funny little half-smile on her face as though she knew
something which I didn’t. I asked her about it once. She didn’t say a
word, just reached over and patted me on top of the head. Somehow it
made me feel like a Pekinese. But I refused to let it worry me. I was
too busy creating a perfect patent specification.
The opening paragraph in my specification read:
* * * * *
_This invention relates to a suit of apparel, particularly designed for
the protection of a diver, and has for its object to provide a diving
suit of novel construction that may be comfortably worn by a person,
be capable of yielding at all the joints of the wearer’s body, be
earthproof and airtight, be self-contained as to air supply, be light,
strong, and durable, afford means for the descent of a diver in various
depths of dirt, and enable the deepground diver to move around freely
through rock, stone, and earth of varying composition._
The final draft consisted of seven pages of drawings, ten pages of
spec, and twenty-eight claims. I sat at my desk for a good thirty
minutes pridefully staring at the lovely stack of papers. I read over
some of the more brilliant passages, rolling the words on my tongue,
amazed at what a clear picture they painted. Convinced that it was
now a masterpiece of logic and persuasiveness, I took it in for
Spardleton’s approval.
He picked it up and began to read. I waited confidently, convinced that
he could hardly fail to see in it the sure hand of genius. He finished
it far more rapidly than I would have thought possible. “_Um_,” he
said, tossing it back to me, “It’ll do. File it.”
Susan made out a check for thirty-eight dollars and I mailed the whole
mess to the Patent Office.
The next couple of months passed swiftly. Under Spardleton’s expert
tutelage my working fund of patent knowledge blossomed and grew. I
learned how to write page after page of patent specification without
actually saying anything. I achieved an amazing degree of tonal control
over my voice. By simply saying to an Examiner, “I don’t quite agree
with you there,” I was able to suggest by the tone of my voice alone
that I knew he had received his scientific education by the rudimentary
osmotic process of sitting on his text books. Sometimes it worked.
Then one day Spardleton sent for me.
He was evidently busy trying to decipher an Office Action when I
entered. Webster’s Unabridged stood open on its stand beside his desk
and at least six volumes of the Britannica were scattered about on the
floor. The desk itself was littered with thesauruses and handbooks
and I noticed particularly Partridge’s _Dictionary of Slang and
Unconventional English_.
As soon as I walked in he asked, “Did you ever hear of the word
‘sludutiferous?’”
“I’m afraid not,” I said.
“Well, there is such a word. I found it here.” He waved vaguely at the
forest of books on his desk. “And I must say I’m a little disappointed
in the Examiner. I don’t know what the Patent Office is coming to when
they begin using words that are actually in existence.” He looked
at the initials in the upper left-hand corner of the Office Action.
“Oh,” he said, brightening considerably. “Maybe that explains it. Old
Nailgood. He’s just allowed several claims in Marchare’s cabbagite
deodorizer case. He must be slipping fast.”
His smile vanished and his brows drew together. “Still, there’s
something phony here. Cabbagite is a real invention. It’s a money maker
for Marchare, and a boon to the housewife. There’s something remotely
similar in the prior art. It’s very odd, therefore, that the office is
willing to give us a patent on it. Unless--”
“Unless what?”
“Unless they want to allow it, in order to use the allowed claims to
reject Marchare on some other application of even greater importance.
Does he have any co-pending applications relating to cabbagite?”
“None that I know of,” I said.
“How about that diving suit?” I stared at him, startled, “Surely you
don’t mean they’d reject a diving suit on a deodorizer? What kind of
sanity is that?”
He gave me a puzzled look. “Sanity? What’s sanity got to do with it?”
I hadn’t got around to answering him when Susan walked in and handed
Spardleton a letter--clearly a communication from an Examiner. He tore
it open and scanned it quickly.
“Ah, hah,” he said. “Look here. This explains everything.”
I circled around behind him. It was an Office Action, all right. And it
was in reference to the diving suit application.
The first thing I noticed were the initials in the upper left-hand
corner: H. K. _Herbert Krome_! Mister Patent Office himself--the evil
genius who handled patent lawyers the way an animal trainer handles big
cats. A single glance showed me how serious--and nasty--it was.
“This application has been examined
Art cited:
Anderson et al--
1,022,997 April 9, 1912 2/2.1
Browne--
2,388,674 Nov. 13, 1945 2/2.1
Claims 1-28 are rejected as based on inoperable structure in the
absence of a demonstration.
Claims 1-28 are further rejected on the allowed claims in applicant’s
co-pending S.N. 162,465, directed to the cabbagite crystal. Since it
is known that cabbagite rearranges matter (30₂→20₃) it
would be obvious to attach it to the well-known diving suit of Browne
to obtain applicant’s result.
No claim is allowed.
Examiner.
“See?” said Spardleton, his features dark, “Just as I thought. _He’s
using our own application against us._”
We were quiet for a moment.
“There’s another matter,” said Spardleton. “Marchare says the
Department of Defense has been dickering with him for rights under
his diving suit application. I told him to stall them until he gets
an allowance. If he can’t get a patent, the government can award
manufacturing rights to anyone and not have to pay Marchare a nickel.
“Actually, they prefer a license under a patent: It avoids any chance
of suits in the U. S. Court of Claims by twenty or more halfbaked
inventors who think Defense stole the idea from them. So time is of the
essence.”
I said, “If I could demonstrate a suit to Krome, I’m sure he’d allow
the case immediately. But I don’t think the suit has been completed
yet. Have you heard from Marchare?”
“I phoned him about it a couple of weeks ago,” said Spardleton. “He
told me it wasn’t _quite_ ready. When I asked him to be specific he
mumbled something about bugs in the control system.” Spardleton studied
me thoughtfully.
“I can at least _show_ the suit to Krome,” I said uneasily.
“I think it’ll take more than that,” Spardleton said.
“Maybe I could fill it with rocks and let it down into the ground on a
rope,” I suggested brightly.
“Krome won’t buy that.” Spardleton frowned and seemed lost in thought
for a moment. “Still, if I know Krome as well as I think I do it
may work out all right. You’d better arrange for an interview this
afternoon, and then run out and get the suit--_as is_. Marchare said
you could have it anytime.”
As I left to take care of things, a slow introspective smile was
spreading over Spardleton’s face.
Each patent lawyer must develop his own technique for interviewing
Examiners. Some shout and rave and rant. But that is foolhardy. One
slip, and the show is over. Others play dumb and act as if they haven’t
the slightest idea what the score is. That encourages the Examiner to
talk himself out on a limb. Still others employ the yakety-yak system
wherein they never give the Examiner a chance to open his mouth.
It is a subterfuge which is only used by those who don’t dare meet
the Examiner in fair and open combat. Others use the buddy-to-buddy
approach in which the attorney manages to convince the Examiner that he
and the Examiner--and especially the Examiner--are the only two people
in the whole world who really understand patents.
After due consideration I had decided to use an absolutely unique
approach, one never thought of before.
I was going to be myself.
I had a good invention, the application was well-written and everything
was just as it should be. I had no need to resort to deception, or
evasion. Besides, I had seen what Krome could do to attorneys with a
system. He took the system, rolled it up in a compact ball, and fanned
them out with it, scoring his three strikes without once unbending.
At two o’clock sharp, with the diving suit under my arm, I stepped up
to Mr. Krome’s desk.
“Mr. Krome?” I inquired, with just the proper amount of rhetorical
deference.
“Yes, yes. What is it?” he said without even looking up.
“I’d like to talk to you, sir, if I may. It’s about the Marchare case,
the diving suit--”
I knew Krome quite well, but still he asked me coldly, “Are you the
attorney of record?”
“Yes, sir,” was my instant reply. He knew I was--and he knew I knew
that he knew. But it was part of his routine, and I didn’t want to
irritate him by abbreviating the amenities.
“I can spare you ten minutes,” he grumbled. “I have an important
appointment with the Commissioner at two-thirty.”
I said, “Ten minutes will be quite sufficient.”
“Just a second while I get the case,” he said. He got up and
disappeared into the Clerk’s room.
Five minutes later he returned, and steamed back to his desk, my
application clutched tightly in his hand.
“Yes,” he said, without even looking at it, “part of my rejection was
on probable inoperability. Have you got a working model there?”
“I certainly have,” I replied. “Though you might not believe it even
when you see it. This is absolutely the most--”
“Why won’t I believe it when I see it?” he demanded.
“Well, I just meant--”
“Is this a trick of some kind?” he bridled.
“No. Oh, no. I just--”
“Well, why won’t I believe it when I see it?”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said quickly. “I meant--”
“I heard what you said. Let me remind you of Rule Three. Interviews
with Examiners must be conducted with decorum. No frivolity,
understand?”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “You’ll believe it. Honest you will.”
He stared at me suspiciously. “We’ll see. Bring it into the next room.”
He stalked off. I picked up the box, and staggered after him into the
conference room.
“Open it up,” he commanded.
I dumped the suit on the table.
He felt the texture of the cloth. “It doesn’t look like much,” he said.
“And look here.” Very deliberately he stretched the diving suit out
full length. “Doesn’t that look just like an ordinary diving suit?” he
asked.
“Yes, but--”
“Isn’t its design similar to that of any diving suit?”
“Yes, but--”
“And a diver underground acts the same as a diver underwater.”
“Well, sure. But--”
“And, as a matter of fact, listen to this.” Krome picked up the
application and read a few paragraphs to me. “Now,” he said, “all I
have to do is change the word ‘underground’ to ‘underwater,’ change the
word ‘ground’ or ‘earth’ to ‘sea,’ and I have a perfect description of
a deepsea diving suit. Am I right?”
“I know all that,” I said. “But--”
“Well, then--there is no invention here. Once the cabbagite crystal is
known it becomes so obvious that any routineer could use it in a diving
suit. A new use of an old thing or an old process cannot be patented.
Regar & Sons, Incorporated versus Scott and Williams, Incorporated.”
* * * * *
I protested, “But wait a minute. Wait until I demonstrate it for you.
I’ll tie this rope on and then--”
“No you don’t,” he said. “You don’t pull any rope tricks on me. I’ve
read the spec. I know how it’s _supposed_ to work. _I’ll_ put it on.”
And he began to climb into it.
“Kindly stop opening and closing your mouth,” he said, “and help me
with the helmet.”
“Please,” I gasped. “The controls aren’t--”
“Put the helmet on,” he said.
“But the controls aren’t--”
“Put the helmet on,” he insisted.
With nerveless fingers I obeyed. I can remember wondering whether there
was anything in his life insurance policy that would have covered
a possibly fatal outcome. I hoped they wouldn’t make his widow and
children wait seven years.
I turned to glance at the door to see if there were any witnesses. No
one was watching. I turned back to Krome and noticed with alarm that he
appeared to have grown shorter. For a moment I thought he had fallen to
his knees. But then I saw that he was slowly sinking through the floor.
I made gestures with my hands in front of his face plate in a frantic
attempt to show him how to operate the controls. Lower and lower he
sank. I followed him right down to the floor until he disappeared
through it, leaving me on my hands and knees staring at the blank and
dusty tiles.
Then I realized with horror that we were on the seventh floor.
I turned and rushed out of the room and down the hall to the stairway.
I tore down the stairs, and out into the hall below. I ran for the room
directly underneath the one where Krome had been. Before I could reach
it several sickeningly-curdled screams resounded through the corridor,
and I heard the muffled bangs of things crashing to the floor. A few
loose papers floated out through the open door.
I pulled up in the doorway, and looked in.
There were five patent attorneys in the room, waiting their turn to be
heard by the Board of Appeals. Krome was in the middle of the room up
to his waist in the floor. His arms flailed wildly as he tried to keep
his balance.
The panic-stricken attorneys stood on tables and chairs hurling
whatever they could lay their hands on at the monster that confronted
them. Books, inkwells, and brief cases rained around Krome’s helmeted
figure. Finally one of the attorneys reached down and hoisted a chair
high over his head.
Krome saw it and raised an arm in terrified protest. For the first time
his voice came out through the speaker attached to the diving suit.
“No! No!” he screamed. But it did no good. With fear-driven muscles the
attorney launched the chair at Krome. It struck him sharply across the
chest.
The two shattered ends of the chair hurtled past him, and crashed
against the opposite wall. The middle portion that had hit his body
flattened out like water against the suit. Part of it flowed down, and
formed wooden puddles on the floor. Other parts splashed out sideways
in little streamlets that solidified into splinters and sprinkled all
over the floor.
The attorneys stared bug-eyed at what had happened to the chair. For a
brief instant they were paralyzed. Then, moving as a single man, all
five of them made a dive for the doorway. I was directly in their path,
and I never had a chance.
I was a wreck when the stampede had passed over me. My nose was
bleeding profusely, my left trouser-leg was ripped off at the knee, and
my right sleeve was gone. There were even footprints on my naked chest.
I crawled back to the door and looked in. Krome was gone. I got to my
feet and slowly started to walk toward the stairs. I tried in vain to
stem the flow of blood with my shirttail. One eye was swelling fast,
and a front tooth had worked loose.
I wandered out into the next lower corridor in search of Krome. I
looked in at the doorway of what seemed to be the proper room. It was.
The Primary Examiner was sitting at his desk talking to an ashen-faced
young fellow. Neither of them was saying anything. Their eyes were
fixed on a stationary point at one corner of the Primary’s desk. At
first I couldn’t tell what it was. Then I caught a movement, and my
heart sank.
Krome had descended on the Primary’s desk. Apparently he had thrashed
around while trying to get his balance, and now he was half-stuck in
the desk. I got there just in time to see the helmet, right side up at
last, take up a fixed position at one end of a shelf of books.
“Oh,” said the Primary peering in through the faceplate. “I’m glad
you dropped in, Krome. I’d like you to meet Jones, our newest junior
Examiner. He just joined us today. Mr. Jones, Mr. Krome.” There was a
bitter, almost savage irony in his voice.
Krome nodded curtly, only his head visible above the desk top. His
arm came out of the desk as he started to shake hands. But he thought
better of it and his arm dropped out of sight again. Jones just sat
there, white, tense.
The Primary nodded. “Some misguided applicant has just cut his own
throat by persuading Mr. Krome to try out his invention.” He turned to
Jones. “There’s a good lesson here. The inventor has merely substituted
stone for water. In processes it’s a common expedient to substitute
one ordinary medium for another. Diving suits are no exception. Mere
gadgeteering.”
Jones just sat there staring at Krome’s head. I don’t think he heard
anything the Primary said. I could see that if anybody was going to
defend my application, I’d have to do it myself. I walked into the room
and took up the battle.
“But how,” I demanded, “can you reject an inventor on his own
co-pending application-one that hasn’t even been issued as a patent?”
Krome gave me a pained look through the quartz porthole. “Section one
hundred and two, A, says the invention must not have been known before
the invention by the applicant. There’s no inventive advance in the
diving suit over Marchare’s prior cabbagite application. Hence, in
effect, the diving suit invention was known when Marchare invented
cabbagite.”
I blinked at his steady black eyes. “You mean,” I said, “like jet
planes were known when the Chinese invented the sky rocket?”
“Precisely. This concept of patent law is so sound, so logical, that
I can’t understand why the Supreme Court took nearly a hundred and
fifty years to swing around to it. And, of course, when it’s the
inventor’s own prior work that’s used to reject a current application,
the situation is a double strike against him.” He leered at me
triumphantly. “How can a man be smarter than himself?”
“But even the Supreme Court says you can’t reject an application on
a combination merely because you can find all its elements in the
prior art,” I protested. “There can still be a patentable invention
in combining those elements. Here the invention consists of combining
cabbagite _and_ a diving suit. Nobody ever thought of that before.”
“Of course they never thought of it before,” he explained patiently.
“They couldn’t, because they never heard of cabbagite before.”
“Then nobody but Marchare could invent the diving suit.”
“Quite true. But the minute he invented it, it became non-invention,
because, since it was _he_ who invented it, it didn’t require
invention.”
The new Examiner finally recovered his faculties, He slapped both hands
on his knees, got up, and said, “Well, so long, sir. By resigning right
now I may have a fighting chance of retaining my sanity.” And he walked
out the side door shaking his head.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked the Primary in a puzzled voice.
Krome said, “I don’t know. Perhaps he--” He stopped. The helmet had
suddenly dropped a couple of inches further into the desk. It hung
there a split second, then dropped a few inches more. Step by step he
was slipping down. We heard his muffled voice coming out of the desk
through the cracks around the drawers, but we couldn’t understand what
he said. The Primary and I leaned over to look under the desk. We
watched the floor close over the helmet.
The Primary straightened up, and glared at me. “Well,” he said. “If
you’ll excuse me, I have lots of work to do.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “I have to go find Mr. Krome anyway. Goodbye, and
thanks for your trouble.”
“No trouble, no trouble,” he retorted with a venomous inflection,
picking up a document from his desk top and beginning to read it.
I trotted on down to the room underneath.
The door was closed, and on it in big letters were the words NARCOTICS
BUREAU. I carefully opened the door and looked inside.
* * * * *
It was a small room, and there were only four men in it. Three of
them were bent intently over their desks. But the fourth man had
tilted back in his chair for a moment’s reflection and contemplation.
His hands were clasped behind his head, and everything about him was
normal--except his eyes. No human eyes should ever protrude the way his
did.
Krome hung suspended from the ceiling. Everything below his collar bone
was in plain sight, and most of it was thrashing around noiselessly.
For about ten seconds it continued thus--the immobile narcotics expert,
the quivering Krome. Then Krome managed to turn on the energy field
in the upper part of the suit. Without a sound he slipped out of the
ceiling, fell through the floor, and disappeared.
Nobody saw him go except me and the thinker. That amazing gentleman
swallowed hard and sat upright. A quick glance convinced him that none
of the others had noticed anything wrong. He swallowed again, sighed
heavily, and then methodically began to clean out his desk.
As I was sadly closing the door, I realized with sudden consternation
that Krome was dropping toward the Search Room on the ground floor. And
the ceiling there was over twenty feet high. I began to run again.
The Search Room was quiet when I burst into it, holding my tattered and
blood-caked clothing tightly around me. The occupants of the room gave
me strange looks, but they were so used to having screwballs around
that nobody said anything. I kept my eyes on the ceiling.
For a moment there was no sign of Krome. Then off to one side, over
near the entrance where the patent bundles were kept, a foot appeared
from the ceiling. It moved around as if seeking a firm place to
stand, and then quickly withdrew back into the ceiling. It cautiously
reappeared a moment later, closer to the huge pillars that stretched
down to the floor. Again it sought a footing.
I heaved a sigh of relief. Krome evidently knew where he was, and was
taking no chances. As I stared the foot vanished for the second time.
It came into view again an instant later, this time about eighteen
inches from the arch at the summit of the pillars. It flitted around
and found the pillar. Hands flashed through the ceiling as Krome
paddled himself over, and then carefully lowered himself out of the
ceiling and into the arch at the top. Large portions of him were now in
plain view.
The uproar from the floors above had been steadily increasing in
volume. The people in the Search Room were glancing questioningly at
one another. And just as Krome was about to complete his transfer to
the pillar one of the patent stenographers saw him.
Her screams all but shattered every window in the block-long room.
Everybody froze. All eyes followed the stenographer’s hand that was
pointing to where Krome was just beginning to descend, half in and
half out of the pillar. A long moment of stark silence gave a kind of
funeral dirge significance to what followed.
There were only two exits. I was smart this time. I stood off to one
side as the terrified occupants of the room leaped over the search
tables like gazelles fleeing from a lion. Chairs were crushed to
pulpwood. Many people had been back in the stacks when the commotion
started, and were now emerging with their arms loaded with bundles of
patents. Instantly the air was thick with flying documents.
I couldn’t help but admire the consummate skill with which Krome
descended the column. His rear end protruded as he stepped slowly down.
Every four or five feet, he’d stop, turn around, and thrust his head
out to make sure where he was. Then he’d disappear for a moment, out
would come his backside again, and the slow descent would resume.
There was a revolving fan fastened to the pillar about seven feet above
the floor. I watched, fascinated, as Krome got closer and closer to
it. Finally fan and fanny met. The blades flowed into long slivers of
metal that shot across the room and _spanged_ off the walls. The motor,
relieved of its load, began to race faster and faster.
Krome must have felt the gentle blows of the blades because his hand
reached out of the pillar and brushed at them as though he were shooing
a fly. His hand passed through the fan support. There was a shower of
sparks and a little smoke curled up. The fan sagged forward on its
support and then solidified as Krome’s hand moved on through. I never
saw a sorrier looking device than that fan once Krome got through with
it. The electricians would be in for a bad few hours trying to figure
out what had happened to it.
Krome finally reached the floor, stepped out of the pillar, turned
off the suit, and heaved a big sigh. He turned around and for the
first time got a good look at the Search Room. Most of the chairs were
reduced to rubble. Many of the large search tables were overturned and
broken and Krome himself stood knee-deep in patents.
Krome gave one puzzled and uncomprehending glance at all this. Then
he looked at the clock over the door. “Good grief!” he groaned. “Two
thirty-five! The Commissioner!” He turned and ran through one of the
archways that opened into the stacks. I lit out after him.
He had turned the suit on again, except for the soles of the feet. This
gave him a decided advantage over me. He could take short cuts through
solid walls. He went through the back wall of the stacks without even
slowing down.
I cut off to one side through the door that led into the foreign art. I
stopped and listened. From the other end of the long law room I heard a
sudden splintering crash. I raced on in trepidation. A man was standing
near the Swedish art. A broken pint bottle lay at his feet and whiskey
was lapping at the soles of his shoes. His forefinger was half-crooked
in front of his face. But it was his bulging eyes, aimed at a section
of the wall, which pointed out the direction Krome had taken. As I
turned from him he collapsed, head in hands, and began to sob quietly.
I quickly found my way to the back corridor. As I proceeded down it,
the now-familiar ruckus started up in the Mail Room. Women screamed,
men shouted, and heavy objects thumped on the floor. Krome had used
very poor judgment in cutting through the Mail Room. But how was he to
know that the people in it were not scientifically-minded?
I waited until one of the doors stopped spewing people, and then leaped
resolutely inside. One glance convinced me that the Patent Office would
not be running smoothly for a considerable period to come. Several of
the clerks had dropped to their knees and were praying, some quietly,
some loudly.
There were papers everywhere. And an empty mailbag dangled limply
from an overhead light, looking startlingly like the victim of an
over-wrought hangman. One man sat on the floor in front of a pile of
thousands of newly-arrived applications. He was laughing insanely and
tossing repeated handfuls of applications high overhead. Petitions,
checks, notarized oaths, drawings, and fragments of applications
slithered through the air like snowflakes in a blizzard. Krome had
passed through, all right.
I walked amidst the bedlam unnoticed seeking some sign of Krome. I
couldn’t figure out where he had gone. Then suddenly I had it--his
two-thirty appointment with the Commissioner.
I jumped to a window and looked out. My heart almost stopped beating at
what I saw.
A girl was walking away from me along the sidewalk, her hips swinging
up and down like the ends of a seesaw. Krome was plowing along right
behind her, completely out of control, getting closer all the time. He
was tilted forward pawing at the ground with his hands, now submerged
to his neck, now above ground to his ankles. The girl had ignored his
first frantic warnings, so Krome shouted again. She threw an annoyed
glance back over one shoulder and--the seesaw froze.
Krome churned closer and closer. My heart was in my mouth. I had no
idea what would happen when the diving suit bumped into a live human
being. I stopped breathing.
Closer and closer! Then just as a collision seemed inevitable Krome
executed a rather neat surface dive into the pavement which carried
him safely and spectacularly underneath her feet. Almost instantly
he reappeared on the other side doing a strong overhand stroke which
quickly put a safe distance between himself and the grievously
threatened young lady. She toppled over in a dead faint.
I dashed into the next building, into an office where a short, heavyset
man stood bending over a huge desk. I recognized him in a flash. The
Commissioner of Patents!
At the Commissioner’s desk side sat a man in uniform--a two-star
general.
It added up. I thought fast. Krome--the Commissioner--the general.
I cleared my throat as they looked up blankly. “I beg your pardon,” I
said politely. “I’m Mr. Saddle, Dr. Marchare’s attorney in the diving
suit case. Mr. Krome suggested I be here during his appointment on this
matter.”
“Really?” grunted the Commissioner. “And where is Mr. Krome?”
“He said he’d be passing through any moment now,” I said hurriedly.
Just then Krome walked in through the north wall. Fortunately neither
the general nor the Commissioner saw him until he stepped out from the
wall.
The Commissioner glared at Krome, then at his desk clock. “You’re
late,” he chided. “However, since you brought the suit, that’ll
save time. Gentlemen, this is General Bond, Secret Weapons Bureau,
Department of Defense.”
Krome got it immediately too. But, like other people who live by their
wits, my reflexes were faster. I said smoothly, “Mr. Krome and I have
just been giving the suit a tryout, and he invited me along to the
conference.” I beamed sideways at Krome. “He finds all the claims
allowable, and my client stands prepared to license the Secretary of
Defense to manufacture, at a very reasonable royalty, any and all--”
“But--” sputtered Krome.
“Mr. Krome has applied to most stringent tests.” I continued hurriedly
as I sidled over toward the encased, protesting figure. And in patting
him jovially on the back, I somehow brushed against the mike button,
chopping off the torrent in mid-cascade. “Oops, how careless of me! Oh,
well, Mr. Krome will tell you himself, as soon as I get the helmet off.”
“How long will that take?” demanded General Bond.
“Not more than three or four hours,” I said. “If it doesn’t jam.”
“Can’t wait.” He turned curtly to the Commissioner. “Phone me the
patent number as soon as the application is passed to issue.”
“Yes, sir,” the Commissioner replied.
“And you, Mr. Saddle,” said the general sternly, “had better inform Dr.
Marchare about the penalties of profiteering against his government.
We’ll give him a trial order for ten thousand suits, but if he holds
out for more than five thousand dollars per suit, we’ll seize the
patent by Eminent Domain.”
“I suppose the good doctor won’t mind taking a loss on a small trial
order,” I said reluctantly, “But, of course, on a mass scale, my client
would at least have to make expenses, particularly if he adds certain
improved features.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” declared the Commissioner. “There’s something
funny about this. Look at Krome. Tears are pouring down his cheeks!”
“I’m sure that’s sweat.” I mopped my face hurriedly. “It’s warm in here
too, isn’t it? Dr. Marchare intends to air-condition the suit. That’ll
bring it up to an even six thousand.”
“Five thousand five hundred,” clipped the general.
I hesitated a moment. “You’re a hard man, general,” I sighed. “But--all
right, five thousand five hundred it is.”
And I led Krome out of the room.
Transcriber’s note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, November 1955 (Vol. 4,
No. 4.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
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