In these volumes the word _adventure_ has been used in its broadest
sense to cover not only strange happenings in strange places but also
love and life and death--all things that have to do with the great
adventure of living. Questions as to the fitness of a story were
settled by examining the qualities of the narrative as such rather
than by reference to a technical classification of short stories.
It is the inalienable right of the editor of a work of this kind to
plead copyright difficulties in extenuation for whatever faults it
may possess. We beg the reader to believe that this is why his
favorite story was omitted while one vastly inferior was included.