Life — September 10, 1908 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Life Magazine, September 10, 1908 This page contains a single-panel cartoon depicting a domestic scene. A woman lies in bed while a man stands at the bedroom door holding a candle, apparently having just discovered a burglar downstairs. The caption reads: "MISSUS! MISSUS!! THERE'S A BURGLAR DOWNSTAIRS" with the sleeping woman's response: "(Sleepily) 'TELL HIM I'M NOT AT HOME, MARY.'" The humor relies on absurdist logic: the woman, already in bed, claims unavailability to someone actually in her home. This likely satirizes either marital dynamics (a wife avoiding her husband) or the era's conventions about receiving callers. The joke's point appears to be about social pretense—maintaining the fiction of unavailability even when circumstances make it ridiculous.