Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/11

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PREFACE

THE work between these covers, however grave its many faults and shortcomings, was penned with a single aim, to wit, to compose a story susceptible to adaptation to motion-picture purposes. Its brazen impudence in respect of probability was demanded by the fact that each episode of the fifteen here presented must of necessity embrace sufficient moving incident to warrant some two thousand feet of film exhibiting from ninety to one hundred and twenty animated scenes.

It is offered in its present form mainly for the amusement of those who in common with the author liked the pictures, who conceived a fondness for the several characters: for the dashing, impish Judith, and the brave, long-suffering Rose so admirably portrayed and differentiated by Miss Cleo Madison; for the gallant if persecuted Alan, who could never have been played by any one lacking the cool-headed daring and good-will of Mr. George Larkin; for that frigid villain, Seneca Trine, as delineated by the always amiable Mr. Edward Sloman; for that notorious bad-shot of unremitting ubiquity and ever-lasting stupidity, Marrophat, as played (with blank

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