an idea
of your originality and resource in the choice of topical photographs."

"I think you can rely on me to be original," said the young man, "and
not only original but revolutionary. I have thought about it all a lot,
and I have made some discoveries. My notion is that the public wants to
be 'in' all that is happening. Nothing's beneath their notice; their
eyes want food to feast on all the time."

"Go on," said the editor; "you interest me strangely."

"The function of the camera, as I conceive it," the young man explained,
"is to serve as the handmaid of the fountain-pen. Together they are
terrific--a combination beyond resistance. That perhaps is the chief of
the inspirations which much pondering has brought me. One must always be
fortifying the other. People not only want to read of a thing, they come
to see it, and very rightly. Here is an example. We are gradually
getting shorter and shorter of messengers, so much so that many
shopkeepers no longer are able to send purchases home. That means that
people must carry them themselves. Now what more interesting, valuable
or timely picture could you have than a photograph of a customer
carrying, say, a loaf of bread--a picture of the unfortunate victim of
the KAISER in the very act of having to do something for himself? How
that brings it home to us!"

"By Jove, yes," said the editor, deeply impressed.

"I could arrange for someone to be taken just leaving the shop," the
applicant went on; "and I would put underneath something about the
straits to which the War has brought shoppers."

"Capital!" said the editor. "Go on."

"Then I have noticed," said the youth, "that people are interested in
photographs of musical-comedy and revue actresses."

"I believe you may be right," the editor remarked pensively.

"So I would arrange for a steady series of these ladies, which not only
would delight the public but might be profitable to the advertisement
revenue of the paper if properly managed; for I should state what plays
they were in, and where."

"A great idea," said the editor.

"But I should not," the young man continued, "merely give that
information beneath. I should add something topical, such as 'who has
just received an admiring letter from a stranger at the Front'; 'who
spends her spare time knitting for our brave lads'; 'whose latest song
is whistled in trench and camp'; 'who confesses to a great admiration
for Khaki,' and so on. In this way you get