Life, 1907-06-06 · page 35 of 56
Life — June 6, 1907 — page 35: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical short story (not a political cartoon) about a dangerous invention. A chemistry professor transports an experimental bomb in his trunk—disguised as a clock mechanism—while traveling to visit relatives. The joke centers on dramatic irony: the professor confidently assures his anxious wife the bomb is safe because it only detonates under specific conditions. However, the professor's young daughter, while he's out buying cigars, discovers the "clock" in the trunk and winds it repeatedly—exactly as she'd been taught to wind actual clocks. The story builds tension as readers anticipate disaster. The satire mocks absent-minded academics who pursue dangerous experiments without properly considering domestic reality, and the gap between theoretical safety and practical household hazards. The wife's "misgivings" prove prescient as the child's innocent actions create genuine peril, though the page cuts off before revealing consequences.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A PALM-GARDEN The Professor and His Trunk By Hallowell Crane at anytime. You sce this little clock. Well, the prin- ciple is much the same as an alarm clock. The moment the alarm kes, the bomb goes off, destroy- ing everything within a radius of a block.” ‘The professor’s wife regarded the article with much anxiety. Her husband was admitted to be the greatest chemical expert At present he and his wife were going on a brief visit to their relatives ; but so much interested was he in his work that he could not bear to leave it, so that he was taking along this new affair to experiment with. “Don't give yourself the slightest uneasiness, my dear,” he “Tt is true that the substance in the bomb is highly ex- plosive, but only under one condition. I can throw it in the fire, and it will only smoulder. I can drop it on a brick pave- ment from a lofty height, and nothing will happen.” The professor went out to buy some cigars. His wife, although she had perfect confidence in her hus- band, with some misgivings laid the bomb in one of the upper trays. At this moment the telephone bell rang and she went to answer it. The professor and his wife had one child. She was a little girl of four. While their conversation had “Ts bomb is so arranged that it can be set to go off been going on she had been apparently playing with her doll, but nothing of its import had escaped her. The moment her mother disappeared, she flew to the trunk with lightninglike rapidity. The coveted bomb was in her little handsin an instant. She had wound up clocks before—it was one of her favorite amusements, one that she had been frequently admonished about. Here was another kind of a clock. But there was the key in plain sight. It turned easily. She wound, and wound. Finally, with a sigh of satisfaction, she finished her task. At this moment she heard her mother’s footsteps returning. With the same lightninglike precision she had displayed in the beginning she laid the clock back where she had first observed it and continued to play with her doll. Her mother finished packing the trunk. locked. When the professor came back, he assisted in putting on the strap. A few moments after the expressman came to take it to the station. An hour later the professor and his wife followed. On the train she turned to him and said: This sory continued on page 780 The trunk was comicbooks.com