"Charles L. Harness-An Ornament to His Profession" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

wings. Sparrows. The "room" seemed to concentrate the odor of grass clippings, fresh from yesterday's
mowing. Patrick glanced over at the stone table, and permitted himself the habitual morning question:
Would he have a few moments to work on his article? This was followed by a prompt companion
thought: He was being stupid even to think about it. In three years he had not even finished the first
chapter. And already the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals had wrought far-reaching revisions in the
law of prior printed publication. Maybe he should pick another subject. An article he could do quickly,
get into print quickly, before the Court could hand down a modifying decision. Somehow, there must be
a way to get this thing off dead center. A top-flight professional in any field ought to publish. Not that he
was really that good. Still, as Francis Bacon had said, a man owed a debt to his profession.
He opened the drawer and pulled out the sheaf of papers. But he knew that he wasn't going to work
on it this morning. A breeze fluttered the sheets. His eye cast about for a paperweight and found the
candle-bottle; a stub of candle sticking in the neck of a wine bottle, used when he sat here at night and
did not want to use the floodlights. He put the bottle on the papers.
Glumly he accepted his first inadequacy of the day. No use trying to hold the others back. The line
forms to the right. The magic was gone from the morning; so be it. Let them come. He finished off his
coffee. In his own garden he was a match for all of them. He felt girded and armored.
They came.
One. His department was about to lose a secretary-- Sullivan's Miss Willow. He hadn't told Sullivan.
But maybe Sullivan knew already. Maybe even Miss Willow knew. These things always seemed to get
around. He didn't mind interdepartmental promotions for the girls. He'd used it himself on occasion. But
he didn't like the way Harvey Jayne was using company personnel policy to pressure him. And right now
was a bad time to lose a secretary, with all those Neol cases to get out. As an army travels on its
stomach, so his Patent Department traveled on its typewriters, or, more exactly, on the flying fingers of its
stenographers as applied to the keys of those typewriters, "thereby to produce," as they say in patentese,
a daily avalanche of specifications, amendments, appeals, contracts, and opinions.
He halfway saw an angle here. Maybe he could boomerang the whole thing back on Harvey Jayne.
Have to be careful, though. Jayne was a vice-president.
Two, and getting worse. Jayne wanted publication clearance for the "Neol Technical Manual," and
he wanted it today. It had to be cleared for legal form, proofread, and back to the printers tonight,
because bright and early Monday morning twenty-five crisp and shining copies, smelling beautifully of
printer's ink, had to be on that big table in the Directors' Room. Monday, the Board was going to vote on
whether the company would build a six-million-dollar Neol plant.
Three, and still worse. John Fast, Neol pilot plant manager, wanted the Patent Department to write a
very special contract. Consideration, soul of the party of the first part, in return for, inter alia, guarantee of
success with Neol. It was impossible, and there was something horrid and sick in it, and yet Patrick was
having the contract written by Sullivan, his contract expert, and in fact the first draft should be ready this
morning. He was not going to refer Fast to the company psychiatrist. At least not yet. Maybe in two or
three weeks, after Fast was through helping Sullivan get those new Neol cases on file in the Patent
Office, he might casually mention this situation to the psychiatrist. Why did it always happen this way?
Nobody could just go quietly insane without involving him. Forever and ever, people like John Fast
sought him out, involved him, and laid their madness upon him, like a becoming mantle.
Fourth, and absolutely and unendurably the worst. The patent structure for the whole Neol
process was in jeopardy. The basic patent application, bought by the company from an "outside" inventor
two years before, was now known to Patrick, and to several of the senior attorneys in his department, to
be a phony, a hoax, a thing discovered to have been created in ghastly jest-- by a man in his own
department. This was the thing that really got him. He could think of nothing, no way to deal with it. The
jester, Paul Bleeker, was the son of Andy Bleeker, his old boss and good friend. (Did anybody have any
real friends at this crazy place any more?) And that was really why he had come up with an answer. It
would kill Andy if this got out. Certainly, he and both Bleekers would probably have to resign. After that
there would come the slow, crushing hearings of the Committee on Disbarment.