Judge, 1928-02-25 · page 10 of 36
Judge — February 25, 1928 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# What This Page Means This is the opening installment of a serialized romantic comedy called "The Clock Strikes 13!" — a parody of melodramatic horror and mystery fiction popular in the 1920s-30s. **The Setup:** Phyllis, a young woman employed as secretary to an eccentric, wealthy old colonel living in a creepy mansion, is awakened by ghostly figures peering through her bedroom. The joke is that she's more concerned with tidying a piece of lint than with the supernatural intrusion. When she bends to pick it up, the "lint" speaks to her—it's actually the colonel's long beard. **The Satire:** Judge mocks overwrought serial melodramas (common entertainment of the era) by subverting expectations at every turn. Instead of gothic horror or genuine danger, readers get absurdist humor: a woman's fastidiousness trumps supernatural terror; ghostly threats become romantic comedy setup; and the scary old man is literally caught in a ridiculous position. The illustration by Jack Rose emphasizes the gothic atmosphere the text deliberately deflates—creating humor through incongruity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Cloc Phyllis awoke with two starts Liberty Number of Judge trikes 13! Picture by Jack Rose A NEW SERIAL OF LOVE AND CRIME By HENRY McSEUSS WEBSTER (Reading Time—Tests now under way at Roosevelt Field) (Syorsis—Phyllis Whyllis, no bigger than a pint of cider and three times a graduate of Smith Collece, is in love with some of the ushers at Roxy's, and as a punishment her family has found her a job out of tox 1s private secretary to old, irascible Co! Gimbel, she is finding life very trying is slightly inclined to epilepsy and lives in an old, rickety mansion surrounded by pop- lars that groan like lost souls in the wind He has ratty white whiskers and for a man cighty-cight and a half, going on cighty-nine, his eyes are bright with a hard gleam of insane cruelty, The best part of each day he spends writing codicils to his will, disin heriting his grandparents, whom he believes to be alive in the form of two gray chip- munks and whom he keeps in a cage in the cellar. And all through the long hours of the night he hobbles, muttering to himself, rough the creaking, musty corridors in ch of a spirit called Lucy, the circum- ose death Phyilis has yet to Last night at dinner Niobe, the old, red-eved maid, suddenly fell at the mouth while serving the turnips and died across the table. Just a mite embar rassed at this unexpected turn of things, Phyllis has retired early, only to be awak ened just before daten to find a goodly num- ber of ghosts and other intruders leering in at her through the secret panels of her attic bedroom. As you may well imagine, this has made goose-flesh appear all over her otherwise perfectly proportioned little body.) Part Eleven HYLLIS lay rooted to her Oster- moor, breathing small. Then, gradually regaining her courage, she breathed larger and larger. “Well, boys,” she started to say ...and then stopped. Looking over the footboard of her military cot she had spied a bit of lint cluttering up the rug in front of her bureau. “You must excuse me, terrupted herself, “while I tidy up the chamber.” ‘Tidiness was only one of the many traits that made Phyllis so desirable. pping into a soft beige negligée Phyllis stepped seductively out of bed. As she glided across the room, the moon slid out from under a cloud and flooded her milk-white shoulders with a most bewitching | (By this time, of course. the goose-flesh was all gone and Phyllis the most ador- able thing you ever saw.) She stooped over to pick up the lint. “My word, but you are chic!” came from the piece lint which really wasn't a piece of lint at all. What Phyllis had mistaken lint was the ratty white beard of old irascible {CONTINUED ON PAGE 16} ntlemen,” she in- comicbooks.com