“And so you went back to Texarkhana without proposing,” I began. “Why, yes. There was only forty-seven minutes between trains. I told her so. But I got both shots.” I must have caught my breath, for, as he took the photo back again, he explained: “In the Movie business we don’t employ the actool. This is only the Basis we build on to the nearest professional type. That secures controlled emphasis of expression. She’s only the Basis.” “I’m glad of that,” I said. He lit his cigar, and relaxed beneath the folds of the loose coat. “Well, sir, having secured my _leet-motifs_ and Sex-balances, the whole of the footage coverin’ the downfall of the Red Man was as good as given me by a bust Congregational Church that had been boosting Prohibition near Texarkhana. That was why I’d gone there. One of their ladies, who was crazy about Our National dealin’s with the Indian, had had the details documented in Washington; an’ the resultant film must have cost her any God’s dollars you can name. It was all there--the Red Man partin’ with his lands and furs an’ women to the early settlers for Rum; the liquor-fights round the tradin’-posts; the Government Agents swindlin’ ’em with liquor; an’ the Indians goin’ mad from it; the Black Hawk War; the winnin’ of the West--by Rum mainly--the whole jugful of Shame. But that film failed, sir, because folk in Arkansaw said it was an aspersion on the National Honour, and, anyway, buying land needful for Our inevitable development was more Christian than the bloody wars of Monarchical Europe. The Congregationalists wanted a new organ too; so I traded a big Estey organ for their film. My notion was to interweave it with parallel modern instances, from Monte Carlo and the European hotels, of White American Degradation; the Main Caption bein’: ‘The Firewater of the Paleface Works as Indifferently as Fate.’ An’ old Rum-in-the-Cup’s close-up shows broodin’--broodin’--broodin’--through it all! You sense my Concept?” He relighted his cigar. “_I_ saw it like a vision. But, from there on, I had to rely on my own Complex for intuition. I cut out all modern side-issues--the fight against Prohibition; bootlegging; home-made Rum manufacture; wood-alcohol tragedies, an’ all that dope. ’Dunno as I didn’t elim’nate to excess. The Revolt of the Red Blood Corpuscules should ha’ been stressed.” “What’s _their_ share in it?” “Vital! They clean up waste and deleterious matter in the humane system. Under the microscope they rage like lions. Deprive ’em of their job by sterilisin’ an’ virg’nising the system, an’ the Red Blood Corpuscules turn on the humane system an’ destroy it bodily. Mentally, too, mebbe. Ain’t that a hell of a thought?” “Where did you get it from?”