Judge — October 23, 1920 — page 4: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This sketch by Ormal Lovell depicts a scene in what appears to be an auto mechanic's shop or garage. The dialogue references two characters—"Mike" and "Biddy"—discussing an automobile repair situation. The humor centers on Mike's unauthorized use of a customer's car, apparently a regular practice ("foive years now and never once took th' machine out widout th' owner's permission"). The joke plays on working-class Irish dialect and the casual dishonesty of mechanics who operated vehicles without explicit permission, then denied it. The satire targets both the mechanic's brazen dishonesty and the gap between what owners assume and what actually happens to their vehicles in shops—a relatable concern for early automobile owners unfamiliar with repair practices. The heavy dialect humor was typical of Judge's working-class comedy of that era.