"It was priceless. Just before rush hour. Suds built up in the basin
and overflowed, and down the library steps and covered the whole street.
And the funniest part was they kept right on coming. You couldn't
imagine so much suds coming from that little pool of water. There was a
three-block traffic jam and Harry got us some marvelous pictures--men
rolling up their trousers to wade across the street. And this morning,"
she chortled, "somebody phoned in an anonymous tip to the police--of
course it was the same boy that did it--Tommy--Miller?--and so here we
are. And we just saw a demonstration of that fabulous kite and saw all
those simply captivating mice."
"Mice?"
"Yes, of course. Who would ever have thought you could breed mice with
those cute furry tails?"
* * *
Well, after a while things quieted down. They had to. The police left
after sobering up long enough to give me a serious warning against
letting such a thing happen again. Mr. Miller, who had come home to see
what all the excitement was, went back to work and Mrs. Miller went back
to the house and the reporter and photographer drifted off to file their
story, or whatever it is they do. Tommy was jubilant.
"Did you hear what she said? It'll make the city papers. I wish we had a
thousand kites. Ten thousand. Oh boy, selling is fun. Hilary, when can
you make some more of that stuff? And Doris, how many mice do you
have?"
Those mice! I have always kept my enthusiasm for rodents within bounds,
but I must admit they were charming little beasts, with tails as bushy
as miniature squirrels.
"How many generations?" I asked Doris.
"Seventeen. No, eighteen, now. Want to see the genetic charts?"
I won't try to explain it as she did to me, but it was quite evident
that the new mice were breeding true. Presently we asked Betty Miller to
come back down to the barn for a conference. She listened and asked
questions. At last she said, "Well, all right, if you promise me they
can't get out of their cages. But heaven knows what you'll do when fall
comes. They won't live in an unheated barn and you can't bring them into
the house."
"We'll be out of the mouse business by then," Doris predicted. "Every
pet shop in the country will have them and they'll be down to nothing
apiece."
Doris was right, of course, in spite of our efforts to protect the
market. Anyhow that ushered in our cage building phase, and for the next
week--with a few interruptions--we built cages, hundreds of them, a good
many for breeding, but mostly for shipping.
It was rather regrettable that, after the _Courier_ gave us most of the
third page, including photographs, we rarely had a day without a few
visitors. Many of them wanted to buy mice or kites, but Tommy refused to
sell any mice at retail and we soon had to disappoint those who wanted
kites. The Supermarket took all we had--except a dozen--and at a dollar
fifty each. Tommy's ideas of pricing rather frightened me, but he set
the value of the mice at ten dollars a pair and got it without any
arguments.
Our beautiful stationery arrived, and we had some invoice forms printed
up in a hurry--not engraved, for a wonder.
It was on Tuesday--following the Thursday--that a lanky young man
disentangled himself from his car and strolled into the barn. I looked
up from the floor where I was tacking squares of screening onto wooden
frames.
"Hi," he said. "You're Donald Henderson, right? My name is McCord--Jeff
McCord--and I work in the Patent Section at the Commission's downtown
office. My boss sent me over here, but if he hadn't, I think I'd have
come anyway. What are you doing to get patent protection on Ridge
Industries' new developments?"
I got my back unkinked and dusted off my knees. "Well, now," I said,
"I've been wondering whether something shouldn't be done, but I know
very little about such matters--."
"Exactly," he broke in, "we guessed that might be the case, and there
are three patent men in our office who'd like to chip in and contribute
some time. Partly for the kicks and partly because we think you may have
some things worth protecting. How about it? You worry about the filing
and final fees. That's sixty bucks per brainstorm. We'll worry about
everything else."
"What's to lose," Tommy interjected.
And so we acquired a patent attorney, several of them, in fact.
The day that our application on the kite design went to Washington, Mary
wrote a dozen toy manufacturers scattered from New York to Los Angeles,
sent a kite to each one and offered to license the design. Result, one
licensee with a thousand dollar advance against next season's royalties.
* * * * *
It was a rainy morning about three weeks later that I arrived at the
barn. Jeff McCord was there, and the whole team except Tommy. Jeff
lowered his feet from the picnic table and said, "Hi."
"Hi yourself," I told him. "You look pleased."
"I am," he replied, "in a cautious legal sense, of course. Hilary and I
were just going over the situation on his phosphonate detergent. I've
spent the last three nights studying the patent literature and a few
standard texts touching on phosphonates. There are a zillion patents on
synthetic detergents and a good round fifty on phosphonates, but it
looks"--he held up a long admonitory hand--"it just looks as though we
had a clear spot. If we do get protection, you've got a real salable
property."
"That's fine, Mr. McCord," Hilary said, "but it's not very important."
"No?" Jeff tilted an inquiring eyebrow at me, and I handed him a small
bottle. He opened and sniffed at it gingerly. "What gives?"
"Before-shave lotion," Hilary told him. "You've shaved this morning, but
try some anyway."
Jeff looked momentarily dubious, then puddled some in his palm and
moistened his jaw line. "Smells good," he noted, "and feels nice and
cool. Now what?"
"Wipe your face." Jeff located a handkerchief and wiped, looked at the
cloth, wiped again, and stared.
"What is it?"
"A whisker stiffener. It makes each hair brittle enough to break off
right at the surface of your skin."
"So I perceive. What is it?"
"Oh, just a mixture of stuff. Cookbook chemistry. Cysteine thiolactone
and a fat-soluble magnesium compound."
"I see. Just a mixture of stuff. And do your whiskers grow back the next
day?"
"Right on schedule," I said.
McCord unfolded his length and stood staring out into the rain.
Presently he said, "Henderson, Hilary and I are heading for my office.
We can work there better than here, and if we're going to break the
hearts of the razor industry, there's no better time to start than now."
When they had driven off I turned and said, "Let's talk a while. We can
always clean mouse cages later. Where's Tommy?"
"Oh, he stopped at the bank to get a loan."
"What on earth for? We have over six thousand in the account."
"Well," Peter said, looking a little embarrassed, "we were planning to
buy a hydraulic press. You see, Doris put some embroidery on that scheme
of mine for making ball bearings." He grabbed a sheet of paper. "Look,
we make a roller bearing, this shape only it's a permanent magnet. Then
you see--." And he was off.
"What did they do today, dear?" Marge asked as she refilled my coffee
cup.
"Thanks," I said. "Let's see, it was a big day. We picked out a
hydraulic press, Doris read us the first chapter of the book she's
starting, and we found a place over a garage on Fourth Street that we
can rent for winter quarters. Oh, yes, and Jeff is starting action to
get the company incorporated."
"Winter quarters," Marge repeated. "You mean you're going to try to keep
the group going after school starts?"
"Why not? The kids can sail through their courses without thinking about
them, and actually they won't put in more than a few hours a week during
the school year."
"Even so, it's child labor, isn't it?"
"Child labor nothing. They're the employers. Jeff McCord and I will be
the only employees--just at first, anyway."