I shall not attempt to conceal the fact that I was glad to leave the stockyards.
When, a short time later, the motor car was bearing us smoothly down the sunlit boulevard, the Advertising Gentleman who had conducted us through all the carnage put an abrupt question to me.
"Do you want to be original?" he demanded.
"I suppose all writers hope to be," I answered.
"Well," he replied, tapping me emphatically upon the knee, "I'll tell you how to do it. When you write about the Yards, don't mention the killing. Everybody's done that. There's nothing more to say. What you want to do is to dwell on the other side. That's the way to be original."
"The other side?" I murmured feebly.
"Sure!" he cried. "Look at this." As he spoke, he produced from a pocket some proofs of pen-and-ink drawings—pictures of sweet-faced girls, encased in spotless aprons, wearing upon their heads alluring caps, and upon their lips the smiles of angels, while, with their dainty rose-tipped fingers, they packed the luscious by-products of cattle-killing into tins—tins which shone as only the pen of the "commercial artist" can make tins shine.
"There's your story!" he exclaimed. "The poetic side of packing! Don't write about the slaughter-houses. Dwell on daintiness—pretty girls in white caps—everything shining and clean! Don't you see that's the way to make your story original?"
Of course I saw it at once. Original? Why, original is no name for it! I could never have conceived such originality! It isn't in me! I should no more have thought of writing only of pretty girls and pretty cans, after witnessing those bloody scenes, than of describing the battle at Liège in terms of polish used on soldiers' buttons.