“Simply tell him your story. You offered me a generous deal on the rocket toy principle, but I refused to turn it over. Tell him the aviation industry has got to have it for vital national defense work. Wave the flag. He’ll go for that. Lay it on thick enough and he’ll be braying at congressional doors the same day.”
“He might do it too well.”
“We’ll take that chance. Will you do it? There will be a little pay, but not much.”
“Never mind the pay — if this is the crusade I think it is.”
“Thanks. Let me hear from you as soon as you contact Baird.”
Mart and Berk expected results from Baird’s broadcast. By noon these began to appear in abundance. There were telegrams from Mart’s former students, who were now respected engineers and physicists in commercial laboratories throughout the country. His colleagues on a half dozen teaching staffs sent messages also. And strangers whom he had never known, but whose signatures were over the names of some of the largest concerns in the country, added their observations.
Doris, their secretary in the outer office, had long since been given instructions that they were out to all phone callers except their families and important business associates. In Mart’s office he and Berk sorted the messages one by one, dividing them into two piles.
“Maybe we need a third pile,” said Berk. “Here’ a fellow who wants to know if we think we can help him get a patent on his super-cling shoes for cats, which can’t be kicked off.”
“He doesn’t need our help,” said Mart. “The Patent Office would grant that without a second thought! I got one like that, too. Some guy wants to patent a house suspended like a bird cage. Its rocking motion is supposed to cure neuroses of people who were never properly rocked in a cradle. But most of these offer us a pat on the back and wish us luck. How about your batch?”
Berk nodded. “Same here. Some of these guys are really bitter. Not the crackpots. Engineers mostly. The physicists seem a little less enthusiastic about what we’re doing. Most of them sound a little bewildered.”