Judge, 1915-06-05 · page 5 of 28
Judge — June 5, 1915 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous domestic story about a husband named Henry whose wife has discovered something troubling. The illustration shows a woman watching Henry ride away on a bicycle while she sits by the roadside looking distressed. The narrative reveals Henry's wife is upset because Henry took their suitcase downtown to bring home their Sunday dinner in it—apparently to save express charges. The wife is mortified by this undignified use of luggage, viewing it as beneath their social standing. The satire mocks both Henry's penny-pinching (using a suitcase as a food container) and the wife's concern with appearances and propriety. It's a gentle joke about domestic economics and marital disagreements over practical versus respectable behavior in early 20th-century middle-class life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“There certainly is a special Providence watching over us! ‘HERE was the look of a man with a troubled soul in the face of Mr. Henry Burlison when he reached his home one Saturday evening. The smiling face of his wife did not lessen the look of grim determination in the face of Burlison. A wife with far less in- tuition than Mrs. Burli- son had would have discovered that some- thing had gone wrong, and Mrs. Burlison asked, “Why, Henry, what has happened?"* Burlison stepped into the vestibule of his home and dropped the suitcase he carried to the floor with a dull thud. His voice had an edge like a blade as he said, “Something has happened that will never A R E Vv O L By MAX MERRYMAN happen again if I live to be so old that Methuselah will seem like a kid when com- pared with me. This is the last time that I save fifteen cents by taking that suitcase downtown with me on Saturday and bring home our Sunday dinner in it to save ex- press charges—the very last time!’” “Why, Henry, what happened?’’ “Enough happened to make me tell you that I'll eat my Sunday dinner from an arm- chair restaurant with glittering white let- ters on the window announcing frankfurters and mashed potatoes for ten cents before Cay RU aod If it hadn't been fer that there log that thing ‘d ‘a’ run over me sure!” I'll do any Saturday marketing with a suit- case."" “*But you haven't told me what hap- pened.”” “You would have seen what happened if you had been with me just as I reached the subway stairs. I s’pose I had forgotten to push down the clasps that help to hold the suitcase together, and the thing was so crammed full that it was too much for the self-locking arrangement, and the thing opened right at the top of the stairs.’" “Why, Henry!"’ “*You'd say, ‘Why, Henry!’ if you had seen a six-pound Philadelphia capon travel- ing down those stairs, followed by three big yellow grapefruit and half a dozen Oregon apples!’ “Why, Henry!"" **A bunch of celery rolled down two or comicbooks.com