Life, 1889-03-21 · page 3 of 20
Life — March 21, 1889 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis This page from *Life* magazine (Volume XIII, Number 325) contains two separate humorous pieces: **"Reason Enough"** (top): A sketch of an elegant social gathering where a woman remarks on a man's theatrical manner of speaking. The joke is straightforward: she asks if he's an actor; her companion replies he's worse—"an amateur actor." This satirizes social pretension, mocking people who affect exaggerated dramatic behavior in ordinary conversation. **"A Puzzle Solved"** (bottom): A brief dialogue between Paperwater and Lambrequin about an unpaid five-dollar loan that supposedly became twenty dollars. The humor relies on wordplay and confusion about debt accumulation, concluding with an unrelated quip about umbrellas. Both pieces represent typical *Life* magazine humor: gentle social satire targeting pretension and absurd domestic situations rather than political commentary.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
NUMBER 32s. REASON ENOUGH. She: HOW CONCEITEDLY THAT MAN TALKS, IS HE AN ACTOR? He: WORSE THAN THAT! HE'S AN AMATEUR ACTOR. A PUZZLE SOLVED. APERWATE: What I cawn’t undawstand about it is that Bylker should come and pay me back that five dollaws he bowowed fwom me without my awsking faw it. LAMBREQUIN: Perhaps he wanted to borrow ten. PAPERWATE: By Jove! He made it twenty! Vv ETTER to be a loan than in bad company was not written of our umbrella.