Judge, 1928-05-12 · page 17 of 36
Judge — May 12, 1928 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece, attributed to Dr. Seuss, mocks the 1920s real estate boom and self-improvement culture. The narrator—Merlin the magician—represents a previously unsuccessful figure who transforms himself through a mail-order "mind training" course from the "Pellmann Institute." He then exploits this newfound social credibility to become a real estate developer, building an "Apartment Castle" outside Camelot. The satire's target: he convinces King Arthur and Queen Guinevere to abandon their palace for a cramped one-room suite, establishing it as fashionable simply through royal association. The joke criticizes both the era's real estate speculation (promising luxury living with minimal substance—note the apartments lack running water but have dragons for heat) and the absurdity of following trends blindly based on celebrity endorsement, regardless of actual quality or practicality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
gts of YE GREATE REAL ESTATE BOOME HERE was a time when all ye knyghts did laugh me off as "Foolish Merlin, ye Magi- cian.” I was, forsooth, an awful flop in social life and business. For all that I could do nas stupid parlor trickes with playing cardes, and takyng rabbits out of high silk helmets. But “Ye Kyung and Queen are happy in their cozy then, one Sundae in ye Times I chanced across an Advt. of ye Pellmann Institute of Camelot. It quoth: "Young Fellowe! Canst thou hold thy head up high in publick? Or is thy tail betwixt thy leggs? Clipp off and send ye coupon, and we will send to thee our nobby little Booklet, ‘Scientific Mind-Trayning, or ye Rapid Road to Riches.’” I sent ye coupon in... and dide it do me goode? Dunt esk! [ trayned my mind so well within ye fort night that soon I was invited out in circles where our noble Kyng, himself, cannot break into. (And he hath read four feet nine inches of ye Five-Foot Booke Shelf, and is indeed a social lion.) But social prestige is not all that [ have won. JUDGE le Ta ; give Dope on feing Translated from Merlin's Memoirs By Dr. Theophrastus Seuss For I have put mine newly-born intelligence to work, and have designed and built ye first A part- ment Castle in ye realm. It stands but fourty minutes’ gallop out of Camelot, and thought it hath no runnyng water, it hath dandy central heat. This comes from half a dozen fiery dragons chained up in ye basement, and everie morn at six o'clock ye janitor doth anger them to get up steam, At first I could not get a single tenant, but finally mine powers of argument did get Kyng Arthur and his queen to give up living in their large and musty palace and to move into a ducky one-room suite, and thereby set ye fashion. Here their life is just a happy dream, for pS everything they ‘cy own is right at hande. Queen Gwen doth all the (Continued on page 28) comicbooks.com