approved Hudson seal effect--splendid, manly youths these, who
might have dodged a draft or two but never yet had flinched from before
the camera's aiming muzzle. But even though it had to be conceded that
Goldilockses and Prince Charmings endure and that while drolls and
jesters may come and go, pies are permanent and stale not, neither do
they wither; still, and with all that, such like as these were, in the
Lobel scheme of things, merely so many side lines and incidentals and
by-products devised and designed to fatten out a program.

Where Mr. Lobel excelled was in the vamp stuff. Even his competitors
admitted it the while they vainly strove to rival him. In this, his own
chosen realm of exploration and conquest he stood supremely alone; a
monarch anointed with the holy oils of superiority, coroneted with
success's glittering diadem. Look at his Woman of a Million Sins! Look
at his Satan's Stepchild, or How Human Souls are Dragged Down to Hell,
in six reels! Look at A Daughter of Darkness! Look at The Wrecker of
Lives! Look at The Spider Lady, or The Net Where Men Were the Flies!
Look at Fair of Face Yet Black of Heart! All of them his, all box-office
best bets and all still going strong!

Moreover by now Lobel Masterfilms had progressed to that milestone on
the path of progress and enterprise where genuine live authors--guys
that wrote regular books--frequently furnished vehicles for stardom's
regal usages. By purchase, upon the basis of so much cash or--as the
case might be--so little cash down on the signing of the contract and
the promise of so much more--often very very much more--to be paid in
royalties out of accrued net profits, the rights to a published work
would be acquired. Its name, say, was A Commonplace Person, which
promptly would be changed in executive conclave to The Cataract of
Destiny, or perhaps Fate's Plaything, or in any event some good catchy
title which would look well in electrics and on three sheets.

This important point having been decided on, Mr. Ab Connors, the
scenario editor, would take the script in hand to labor and bring forth
the screen adaptation. If the principal character in the work, as
originally evolved by her creator, was the daughter of a storekeeper in
a small town in Indiana who ran away from home and went to Chicago to
learn the millinery business, he, wielding a ruthless but gifted blue
pencil, would speedily transform her into the ebon-hearted heiress of a
Klondyke