Judge, 1913-04-12 · page 14 of 24
Judge — April 12, 1913 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical story about social pretension and gullibility. Mrs. Flutterby receives a calling card from "Mr. M. Reginald St. Clair" and assumes he's a distinguished family member she met abroad. She frantically prepares herself and her household, planning an elaborate dinner in his honor. The joke: he's actually a silver-polish salesman making routine sales calls. The satire targets upper-class women who are so impressed by aristocratic-sounding names and social anxiety about entertaining that they become easy marks for con artists. Mrs. Flutterby is so flustered and weakened by embarrassment that she doesn't resist his sales pitch and buys his entire product line. The cartoon illustrations above show fashionable people of the era, likely representing the social pretensions being mocked. The humor relies on the gap between Mrs. Flutterby's expectations and reality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ON THE RIALTO Cordelia—Do you think the new show you ‘re with will make a hit? Ophelia—Bound to! The ««QOME one in the parlor to see you, ma'am. Here's his card.'"’ Mrs. Flutterby took the card from the tray held out by the maid and read: Me. We Reg inalt St. Sais. “Oh, mercy on us, Kitty!"’ exclaimed Mrs. Flutterby, in a state of high agita- tion, ‘Reginald St. Clair! It must be one of the St. Clairs we met when we were traveling abroad in the summer! They said that they would be sure to look us up if they ever came to our city! I am sure one of the sons was named Regi- nald! Dear me! I wish I had known he was coming! They are a very fine and exclusive family and— Run down and tell him that it will give me great pleas- Dazing of Mrs. ure to see him in a few minutes, and then you hurry up and help me to change my dress and fix up the best Ican! So pro- voking that I didn’t dress earlier in the day, as I meant to! Hurry, Kitty, and help me! Such a flutter as I amin! We must ask him to stay to dinner, and you will have to help the cook to get up the very best dinner possible! I never sup- posed that I would see or hear anything more of those extremely desirable St. Clairs, and to have one of them call— Oh, if I had only known he was coming!"’ Fifteen minutes later Mrs. Flutterby, having made a rapid change of costume and general appearance with the help of Kitty, was sitting before Mr. M. Reginald St. Clair, who was saying, Why, my dear, even the leading lady blushed when she read her part at the first rehearsal. Flutterby “T called for a few minutes to see if I could not interest you in something en- tirely new in the way of a silver polish- ing outfit. It is a decided improvement on any silver polish yet on the market. If you will bring me the most badly tar- nished silver or pluted spoon or knife you have, I feel sure that I can demonstrate the superiority of this polish over any you have ever used. It not only does the work better than any other polish, but in one-third of the time, and it is absolutely non-injurious to the silver.”” She was so weakened by the shock of it all that he had sold her a complete outfit before she could recover sufficiently to offer any resistance. Mex Merryman. comicbooks.com