"Lige," he said, as he leaned with his elbows on a rock behind him, "the trouble with the company as it now stands is that it's too palpable. There's too much to levy on--too much in sight; too much physical property. How would it do to sell all these mills and elevators, and use the company as a kind of a cream skimmer--a profit shop--to market the products of the mills?" He paused a moment, and Bemis, who knew he was not expected to reply, flipped pebbles into the stream. Barclay changed his position slightly and began to pick stones out of the crevices, and throw the stones into the water. "That's the thing to do--go ahead and sell every dollar's worth of assets the company's got--I'll take the mill here. I couldn't get along without that. Then we'll buy the products of the mills at cost of the millers, and let them get their profits back as individual holders of our stock. Our company will handle the Door Strip--buy it and sell it--and if any long-nosed reformer gets to snooping around the mills, he'll find they are making only a living profit; and as for us--any state grain commissioner or board of commissioners who wanted to examine us could do so, and what'd he find? Simply that we're buying our products at cost of the millers and selling at the market price--sometimes at a loss, sometimes at a profit; and what if we do handle all the grain and grain products in the United States? They can't show that we are hurting anything. I tell you there's getting to be too much snooping now in the state and federal governments. Have you got any fellow in your office who can fix up a charter that will let us buy and sell grain, and also sell the Barclay Economy Strip?" Bemis nodded. "Then, damn 'em, let 'em go on with their commissioners and boards and legislative committees; they can't catch us. There's no law against the railroads that ship our stuff buying the Economy Door Strip, is there? You bet there isn't. And we're entitled to a good round inventor's profit, ain't we? You bet we are. You go ahead and get up that reorganization, and I'll put it through. Say, Lige--" Barclay chuckled as a recollection flashed across his mind--"you know I've made some of our Northwest senators promise to make you a federal judge. That's one of the things I did last week; I thought maybe sometime we'd need a federal judge as one of the--what do you call it--the hereditaments thereunto appertaining of the company." Bemis opened his eyes in astonishment, and Barclay grunted in disgust as he went on: "Of course we can't get you appointed from this state--that's clear--but they think we can work it through in the City--as soon as there is a vacancy--or make a new district. How would you like that? Judge Bemis--say, that sounds all right, doesn't it?"