Horace Gray

“ I am aware that it is old to provide a pencil case for holding ordinary lead pencils with a sliding ring, to which are secured spring clamps having their holding surfaces serrated, and having their shanks bent to approach each other, then jut outwardly and down wardly at their free ends, so that a ring slide may be moved upon said shanks to cause the free ends of the clamps to grasp or release a pencil; and I am also aware that it is old to provide the lead-holding tube of a pencil with an interior thread, and a single slot. ”

“ Lead-tubes now in common use are usually slotted at the lower end to form elastic clamping fingers, which fingers are closed upon the lead near its point end by a sleeve or a tube which moves longitudinally over the fingers. ”

“ The slots, the screw-thread within, and the outer sleeve being all old, and the combination of two or more slots with the sleeve, or of a single slot with the screw-thread, being also old, i is too clear for discussion that to make two or more slots in a tube threaded inside and sleeved outside required no invention ”