"Marvellous!" exclaimed the editor. "But what of the War itself?"
"Ah, yes, I was coming to that," the young man went on. "I have a strong conviction--I may be wrong, but I think not--that war-pictures are popular, and I have noticed that one soldier astonishingly resembles another. This is a priceless discovery, as I will show. I would therefore get all the groups of soldiers that I could take in open country wherever it was most convenient to my operator, and I would label them according to recent events. For example, I would call one group--and understand that they would all have non-committal backgrounds--'A wayside chat near Salonica'; another, 'A Tommy narrating the story of his escape from a Jack Johnson'; a third, 'A hurried lunch somewhere in France'; a fourth, 'How the new group of Lord DERBY'S men will look after a few weeks'; a fifth, 'Our brave lads leaving Flanders on short leave'; and so on."
"But you are a genius!" exclaimed the editor, surprised into enthusiasm.
"As for the rest of the pictures," said the applicant, "I have perhaps peculiar views, but I hold that they ought to be photographs of Members of Parliament walking to or from the House of Commons, a profoundly interesting phase of modern life too little touched upon; photographs of the _fiancées_ of soldiers, of whom it does not matter if no one had ever heard before, engagements being of the highest importance, especially at a time when marriage is a state duty. So much for the staple of the picture-page, which I trust you do not consider too daring."
"Daring, perhaps," said the editor, "but not excessively so, and one must be both nowadays. One must innovate."
"And then," pursued the youth, "for padding--though padding of course only to the experts, not to the great hungry asinine public--anything can be rendered serviceable provided that the words beneath are adroit enough. Thus, a view of Westminster Abbey would be 'The architectural jewel of England which the Zeppelins have in vain tried to bomb'; a view of Victoria Station, 'The terminus at which every day and night, thousands of homing Tommies are welcomed'; any picture of a dog or cat or canary or parrot would bear a legend to the effect that all our brave lads love pets and are never so happy as when accompanied by a favourite animal; while any maritime scene would be certainly related to a recent submarine outrage, the Almighty in His infinite wisdom and prevision having made all expanses of ocean look alike."