Judge, 1937-11 · page 12 of 36
Judge — November 1937 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Nother Li'l Drink" and "On the Skids" **"Nother Li'l Drink":** This humorous anecdote satirizes Prohibition-era drinking. A man claims his wife demanded he empty twelve bottles of alcohol down the sink "or else." The joke lies in the deliberately scrambled narrative—as he drinks, his account becomes increasingly incoherent, with bottles, glasses, sinks, and corks mixed up syntactically. The deteriorating prose mimics drunkenness itself, ending with the narrator unable to count correctly (claiming 29 items but then 74). The humor targets both excessive drinking and the absurdity of Prohibition enforcement (wives policing husbands' alcohol). **"On the Skids":** A crude joke about mispronunciation. A tour guide at Constantinople's Sultan's Palace, showing visitors Empress Eugenie's former quarters in the harem, says she "slipped" there—appearing to reference a sexual scandal or indiscretion. The humor depends on the guide's broken English making "slipping quarters" sound like a euphemism for illicit activity. It relies on period stereotypes about foreign guides and suggests gossip about historical figures.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Nother Li’l Drink FRIEND of ours with offices away ep in one of New York’s down. town skyscrapers seems always to have on hand an inexhaustible supply of in. sane anecdotes. The other day we were in his office, waiting for him, when the door opened. A Western Union boy came in and handed us a typewritten sheet of paper. We didn’t wait any longer for our friend, Mr. Arthur J. Baldwin. We de. parted with the paper for on it was ped the following rigmarole. We still lon’t know where it came from, or why, but here it is: I had twelve bottles in my cellar and my wife told me to empty the contents of each and every bottle down the sink “or else." So I said I would, and pro. ceeded with the unpleasant task. I withdrew the cork from the first bottle and poured the contents down the sink, with the exception of one glass, which I drank. I extracted the cork from the second bottle and did likewise, with the exception of one glass, which I drank. I then withdrew the cork from the third bottle and emptied the good old booze down the sink, ex. cept one glass which I drank. I pulled the cork from the fourth sink and poured the bottle down the glass, which I drank. I pulled the bottle from the cork of the next and drank one sink out of it and poured the rest down the glass. I pulled the sink out of the next glass and poured the cork down the bottle. I poured the next cork out of my. throat and pulled the sink down the bottle and drank the glass. Then I corked the sink with the glass, bottled the drink and drank the When I had everything emptied, I steadied the house with one hand and counted the bottles and corks and glasses with the other, which were 29. To be sure, I counted them again as they came by, and I had 74 and as the houses came by I counted them again and finally I had all the houses and bottles and corks and glasses counted: except one house and one bottle, which I drank. I have the “wifiest” little “nice” in the world. - On the Skids A MUCH traveled lady and gentleman were being shown through the his- torically famous Sultan's Palace in Con. stantinople by a guide whose English was quite good but somewhat inaccu- rate in pronunciation. When the party reached the harem, once temporarily oc- cupied by the Sultan's favorite—Empress Eugenie, the guide remarked: “Dees wus Empress Eugenie’s slipping “Boys, meet Mr. Agnew! He's the guy who furnished those new shower curtains!” quarters—dees ess wair she slipped.” Judge comicbooks.com