“He walked across the room, already smiling as he thought of the surprise in store for her. Still smiling he reached down into the vacant space behind the books until he found the flask, then turned and held it to the light.... “That was a year ago. “The next day Craig went to Canada. He did not return until his wife had sailed for Europe. She is still there, and Craig is--as you saw him.” Drysdale stopped. “But what was the matter? What was wrong?” exclaimed young Gwillam. “What--” Drysdale interrupted him. “You see,” he said, “when he looked at the flask that night, it had once more been filled with a perfectly clear and transparent liquid.” WHY THE EDITORS BUY ADVENTURE As _Adventure_ readers include the cultured and critical as well as those of simple tastes, we seek the kind of workmanship that will stand the difficult test of meeting the approval of both groups. But in selecting our fiction it always seems to us that only that part of the story is effective that reaches the reader’s mind and the highest literary attainment is likely to go hand in hand with simplicity and clearness. We regard it as vitally important that the illusion should be kept up. We want the reader to leave his own world and to live entirely in the world of the story. For this reason we dislike too pronounced mannerisms of style, too unusual names for characters, misstatements in local color, improbability in plot details. We also wish that the author would avoid the obtrusion of his own personality into the story, too much surface cleverness, the specific call upon the reader to philosophize (thus making him think, rather than keeping him in the receptive mood), a too cynical or sophisticated attitude on the author’s part. In general the two points--clearness and keeping the illusion--are probably those which we emphasize most particularly. We have in addition certain types of story that we try to avoid:--those that involve international or political questions; we dislike stories of opium smuggling; stories in which _all_ of the main characters are “natives”; stories which feature intermarriage. Generally speaking, we do not care much for a villain in the rôle of central character; nor for much high society atmosphere; millionaire circles; prisons; slums; lost wills; psychopathic cases; gangsters. Of course exceptions to all of the above sometimes force themselves upon us by sheer merit. We do not insist upon the accepted idea of the “happy ending” but we prefer stories that uplift rather than depress. We consider only the net effect of the story on the reader for the man or woman who is reading a magazine, is doing so, primarily with the idea of enjoying or relaxing, not to be made uncomfortable or unhappy. However, a story to sell to _Adventure_ need not be artificially shaped. We are looking for stories that will please our readers and the range of selection is wide indeed.