"You fellows have given us a lot of trouble, first and last," I mused tranquilly. "There was that injunction business over the London and Chicago Company, and the squeeze by the banks. You have tried every dirty little game you knew." Carmichael grinned and smoked. "I suppose you want our outfit to turn out some more rotten canned stuff for the Government. What you sold them isn't fit for a Chinaman to eat, John." Thereupon I reached into a drawer of my desk and brought out a tin of army beef marked with the well-known brand of the great Strauss. I proceeded to open it, and as soon as the cover was removed a foul odor offended our nostrils. "Here's a choice specimen one of our boys got for me." Carmichael smoked on placidly. "That is something we have never done, though we couldn't make anything on our contract at the figures you people set. And little of the business we got, anyway! Strauss ought to be put where he'd have to feed off his own rations." So we sat and scored one another comfortably for a time, and then came to business. The terms that Slocum and I had figured out were that Strauss and his crowd should pay us in round numbers two hundred dollars per share preferred and common alike, allowing every shareholder the same terms. Carmichael leaped to his feet when he heard the figures. "You're crazy mad, Van," he swore volubly. Then he stated his plan, which was, in brief, that we should make an alliance with the great Strauss and sell him at "reasonable figures" an interest in our company. "And let you and Strauss freeze out my friends? Not for one minute! Go back and tell your boss to find that stock he's short of." Carmichael threw us an amused glance. "Do you think that's worrying us? If you want a fight, I guess we can give you some trouble." It seems that they had another club behind their backs, and that was a suit, which they were instigating the Attorney-general to bring against the Meat Products Company for infringing the Illinois anti-trust act. The impudence and boldness of this suggestion angered me. "All right," I said. "You have our figure, John." He left us that day, but he came the next morning with new proposals from his master. They were anxious to have a peaceable settlement. I had known for some time that these men were preparing for an astonishing move, which was nothing less than a gigantic combination of all the large food-product industries of the country, and they could not leave us as a thorn in their side. They must annex us, cost what it might. So now they talked of my ability, of what I had done in making a great business out of a lot of remnants, and they wanted to buy me as well as our company, offering me some strong inducements to join them. But I told Carmichael shortly:-- "I will never work with Strauss in this life. It's no use your talking, John. There isn't enough money coined to bring me to him. You must buy our stock outright--and be quick about it, too."