Judge, 1927-09-17 · page 26 of 36
Judge — September 17, 1927 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous detective story rather than political satire. The narrative follows Kenworthy Koots (a fictional detective character) investigating a client's complaint about his wife's sudden deafness. The joke centers on a mundane domestic incident: the wife stopped listening to her husband after he complained about mustard on her dress. The satire targets husbands' obliviousness—the client claims his wife heard "every word" he said until that moment, implying she deliberately ignored him afterward as punishment or dismissal. The accompanying small cartoon shows a job applicant negotiating wages with a lady employer, making a separate domestic-labor joke about cooking duties. The overall piece parodies mystery fiction tropes while satirizing early-20th-century gender relations and marriage dynamics—specifically the stereotype of nagging husbands and wives who "mysteriously" stop listening to them.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL NUMBER Kenworthy Koots and the Inci- dent of the Mysterious Deafness Our, or rather Koot's, client, a tall, blond man about five foot two with shining black eyes that matched his raven locks, sat erectly in a chair opposite us all hunched up. It was a peculiar state of affairs, indeed. Koots, who had thumbing his nose in the street, been idly at some boys was listening with attentiv Our client seemed to be searching for words. In- spector Moriarity of Scotland Yards came in at the moment and the inspector and myself aided in the search. It was idea to look in the where he found several, much to Koot’s surprise. Our client picked out several. “How much are these?” he asked. “Those are our best. two-for-a-quarter words,” I told him, and he purchs ased sev- eral. eed anything eé' - 1 sked. Butter, egg: + King? Better ¢. Silver King. You know how necessary that is at a party.” Our client said he didn’t want anything else. “Shall I send them or will you take them?” I asked. “Vl take them,” he answered in perfect Swedish, much to my surprise, for I didn’t think there cheese, > some Lapy—What! You want £ But I do all the cooking! Appricant—In that case T shall Tip burglars: Hovsruonper at work) -walking in m-my sleep. was such a thing. ranged the and spoke. one ear and stand on the stands on thinking. My words in seemed other. his He alw car when wife,” “use rd to fa month as maid of all work? want £5, —Passinc Suow (resourcefully, D-don’t take Then he ar- sentences Koots listened with about to he’s began our client, and I pricked up my cars as I’ve neede da blood test for some time, listen to everything I after discovering two any notice of me—I’m only -Loxpox Ovixton at is a mystery I cannot solve,” promptly interrupted Koots, admitting defeat and pre- paring to take a cold shower. I would tell you where he was pre- paring to take it, but that is an- other story which I shall re’ ‘la ate at wha moment. “Until.” continued our client, ignoring Koot’s interruption, “one day she dropped some mustard on her green crépe de Chine dress.” Koots looked pained and I knew he was visualizing the color scheme. I hastily turned off his visualizer over which we had been getting a program of dance fro our client went on to of course, it was that deafness commenced. up to that time she heard every word I uttered. And I’m quite an _utterer.” Koots slowly stroked Ermin- garde, his pet goldfish, and asked, “Did she make any effort to eradi- cate the of the mustard from the a “Yes,” our client, “that evening when we got home from Coney Island bought some new kind of cleaning fluid and before we retired I'm a retired man, haven't been in business for three months since I lost my job . . . she set to work. seems to be an opportune music answered she comicbooks.com