Judge, 1921-05-21 · page 13 of 32
Judge — May 21, 1921 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Off Duty" by Walt Mason (illustrated by Ralph Barton) This is a humorous satirical story about widespread shirking of professional duties. The narrator attempts to hire lawyers and tradesmen but finds them all absent, pursuing leisure activities instead: one attorney is joyriding in a new car at "ninety miles an hour," another is golfing, a third is fishing with buttermilk and a corkscrew. The satire extends to ordinary workers—bakers neglecting their ovens, grocers abandoning shops for baseball games, tinners pursuing medal-winning greasy-pole climbing contests instead of their trades. The moral anxiety is explicit: this culture of play-over-work will destroy society ("in ten years or maybe four the world will be a wreck"). The piece reflects early 20th-century anxiety about leisure culture and work ethic, presenting recreational pursuits as dangerously seductive distractions from civic and economic responsibility. The illustration shows fashionably dressed leisure-seekers in stark contrast to the abandoned storefronts.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“On, NO ONE LAWOKS ANY MORE, NO TOILER 13 ON DECK.” Off Duty By Waur Mason Illustration by Raveuw Barton E gambol as the bright hours whiz, we whoop around and play; but still a man should ‘tend to biz at least an hou I know that duty is a bore, a dreary thing and vain, and honest labor makes us sore, and in; but still, to make the wheels go round, and now and then we should a day. gives us all a 4 our play should sometimes stop, be found in office or in shop I went to sce the man of law, whose signboard you may read; I wished to have him deftly draw a mortg, nd a deed. His secretary, dazzling maid, smiled at me through her tears; “He's gone,” she said, “and I'm afraid he won't be back for years. You know the punk old car he drove, until a week ago? It looked much like a kitchen stove, and it was deadly slow. He bought a new one t’other day, and it has pep and power, and now he gallivants away at ninety miles an hour. His cli- ents climb von dizzy stair, his counsel wise to buy, but he is never in his lair, he’s climbing hills on high.” came with silver bones to pay him for a deed; but now I'll see Attorney Joncs—for I insist on speed.” 1 went across to Jones’s joint; the lawyer was not near; the head clerk said, “Avaunt! Aroint! His noblets isn’t here. The golf bug has him in its grip; like many locoed ginks, he turns down honest toil to skip out to the well-known links. The judge a just telephoned from court to say he must be there, but he is yonder having sport, with sandburs in his hair. His clients loiter in the hall; much plunder would they yield; but he just swats a little ball around a pasture field. I wait here, nerves upon the rack, and eat my chewing-gum; I know not when he will be back, if he should ever come.” And then I went to Lawyer Gish, with many a fierce gadzook; but he, they said, had gone to fish, down to the babbling brook. “He thinks that sport as fine as silk,” the office boy observed; “he took a jug of buttermilk, and corkscrew nicely curved. The litigants all day appear, and for his counsel call; he may be back some time next year, if he comes back at all. If haply fish are biting well, and his attention win, I fear he'll in the wildwood dwell until he cashes in.”” And thus I find it every day, as I go through the town; the boys are all away at play, and no one buckles down The baker thinks it vain to bake his luscious cakes and pics; he’s hunting bullfrogs in the brake with other sporty guys. The grocer thinks it vain to groce when there’s a baseball game, and he is coming pretty close to earning pitcher’s fame. Phe tinner thinks it vain to tin, or solder leaking holes, when he may some brass medal win for climbing greasy poles. Oh, no one labors any more, no toiler is on deck; and in ten years or maybe four the world will be a wreck. comicbooks.com