This is the first section of my bachelor's thesis (slightly modified):
Years before I was born, my father had met a man, one Morris Moore, on a train from Philadelphia to Boston. He had boarded the train early, as he customarily did, and taken his seat. Moments before the train departed the station, Mr. Moore entered their shared cabin in a rumpled suit and removed the sagging derby from his head, nodding politely to my father as he did so. My father, impeccably dressed (as always), briefly looked up from his newspaper and acknowledged the greeting in kind. He returned to his paper, loathe to engage this dowdy man in conversation. Mr. Moore, however, after placing his briefcase and overcoat on the seat next to his own, sat across from my father, sighed deeply, and asked my father if he was headed home.
Once more, my father looked up from the paper, surprised, and explained that he was merely conducting some business overnight.
Mr. Moore mentioned that he too had hoped to attend to some business, though that had not gone well. He pulled an engraved pewter and brass flask from his suit jacket and offered my father a sip, mentioning that he wasn't normally much of a drinker, but that sometimes circumstances left few other choices. Shocked by the man's forthrightness and evident lack of class, he shook his head no and stared at him, wide-eyed. It was off-putting to my father, this stranger exposing himself to someone so private and guarded. As my father contemplated how to ignore the man most politely, Mr. Moore said that he had created something ingenious. Unfortunately, no one in Philadelphia would meet with him to discuss it.
Though my father was unwilling to pry, as it was completely contrary to his nature, he was, certainly, intrigued by the man's claim. Unsure of the proper response, and unnerved by Mr. Moore's continued drinking, he mumbled that the situation was unfortunate.
Fortified by spirits, Mr. Moore opened up further, drawing attention to the ink spots on his shirt pocket: an embarrassing and common complaint, he said.
Indeed it was, and my father had indeed fallen victim to the destructiveness of the leaky fountain pen. He found it quite annoying (as did most) and he nodded his head in affirmation.
The trick, Mr. Moore explained, is a threaded cap, like a screw. If the nib can be sealed off, then there will be no chance of ink leaking into the pocket. My father sat slack-jawed for a moment, considering the elegant simplicity of the idea and silently cursing himself for not first thinking of it. He quickly regained his composure and expressed surprise that no one had been willing to pursue the idea.
Mr. Moore once again said that no, no one had yet been interested. That very afternoon, in fact, Mr. Waterman had refused to see him altogether. Would a distinguished gentleman such as my father like to enter into a partnership?
The man was clearly unable or unfit to realize his vision. He was a slave to circumstance, whereas my father saw himself as a powerful catalyst - he could, through sheer force of will, determine his own fate. Mr. Moore could do no such thing, so my father took it upon himself to rescue the design from what he thought would be an otherwise ultimately dismal end. In response to the man's question, he lied, saying that it wasn't exactly his area of expertise and he had little interest in exploring new industries.
Mr. Moore, further dejected, drank from the flask intermittently while my father read the paper. Eventually, he fell asleep.
Shortly after, my father quietly reached across the cabin for Mr. Moore's battered leather briefcase and unlatched it. Careful not to disturb the sleeping man, he reached inside and removed all the papers, making sure that the innovative pen design was contained within them. Once he had found it, and after inspecting the other papers to ensure that no other evidence of the invention remained in Mr. Moore's possession, he placed it in his own briefcase. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and slid it into Mr. Moore's valise, confident that the man would never have received any compensation otherwise. Mr. Moore still slept as the train pulled into South Station and as my father disembarked.
My father told me this when I was in my early twenties, after I had informed him of my intention to join the clergy. As he spoke I sat silently, terrified to interrupt him. He stared, unblinking, at the floor of his office, the arms of his chair gripped with chalk-white knuckles. The last thing he said, before he got up and left me in the room alone, was, "Alea iacta est."
"Deo gratias," I whispered.
