Life, 1917-03-29 · page 18 of 42
Life — March 29, 1917 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous domestic story about a husband's failure to manage household finances. The narrator, Horace, describes firing their grocer, Perkins—a man leading a "double life" as both a pious churchgoer and a weekday grocer who confuses sand with Demerara sugar and sells stale eggs. The wife pressures Horace to dismiss Perkins, then switches to a London firm. The joke: Horace calculates he's actually *lost* money in the transaction (£15:16s. total vs. previous costs), despite his wife claiming savings of 1s. 3d. The cartoon illustrates the wife—shown in period dress with exaggerated skirts—representing the domestic authority figure who overrules her mathematically-incompetent husband. The satire mocks both marital dynamics and middle-class anxiety about household accounts and consumer choice in early 20th-century Britain.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IF I had only taken the mathematical tripos at Cambridge it would never have happened. In the first place, the knowledge of arithmetic that I should have acquired would have shown me at once the weak spot in the new ar- rangement. In the second place, I should probably have been able to over- rule my wife; for mathematicians, whatever their failures in other direc- tions, are nearly always, as you may have noticed, successful husbands. A woman never entirely loses her respect for a man whose knowledge of the dif- ferential calculus enables him to tell her, recourse to paper, the total cost of half-a-dozen kitchen towels at eleven pence three farthings each, Ah, well! It is too late now Let me explain. It was at the end of December that we broke with Perkins. Perkins is a man who leads a double life. On the Sabbath he is full of good and useful works. In addition to officiating as B-flat among the bell-ringers of our parish church, he sings an outstanding part in the choir, while as a Sunday- school teacher his exposition of the Scriptures is ranked by many experts as at least equal to that of the curate himself. But on week days he is a grocer of the deepest dye. Though I do not really care much for grocers as a body, I have always considered that every allowance should be made for them. The majority of them are strictly abstemious men of polished manners, with large and in- creasing families of children, all un- der fourteen years of age. As such, they have my sincerest sympath: Again, it is not their fault that the Kaiser has put up the price of Wilt- shire bacon. As every student of in- ternational politics knows, he has been plotting to do it for years, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that they have the power to stop him. There are, however, limits which not even a grocer should transgress, and when last month it became increasingly evi- dent that Perkins was confusing the rather obvious distinction between sand without “LIFE Cash Terms By Richard Dark and the best Demerara, while at the same time his new-laid eggs at 3%d. each were growing daily more pre- historic, my wife decided that we must make a change. I was for giving him another chance. Personally, I have never contracted the Demerara-sugar habit, nor do I care for eggs. “ Let me talk to him,” I said. My wife looked at me. “ You!” Yes; why not?” I answered stout- ly, resisting an impulse to crawl un- derneath the table. “My dear Horace, Perkins would talk you off your head in five min- utes.” Hickory, dickory, dock ; The mouse ran up the clock ; The clock spun ‘round ; The mouse was found. Hickory, dickory, dock! “Not took my revolver,” 1 urged. “Don't be silly. No, we must give him up. We can easily get 1 groceries from London. It will pay us in the end.” “That is certainly rather an idea,” I agreed. So we gave him up. It £10:12s. to do so, since, as it happened, we had not settled with him for } vember. At the same time we des- patched an order for January's pro- visions to the London firm which my wife had decided to patronize. By re- turn of post we received a bill for £5:4:9d., with an intimation that the goods would be forwarded on receipt of a remittance. Thus my total pay- ments for groceries came to £15 :16:0d. And now I am wondering what has really happened. My wife says she has saved me 1s. 3d. It may be so, but my view (possibly a prejudiced one) in- clines me to the belief that I have lost £10:10:0d., for, as far as 1 can see, we could have gone on being a month be- hind with Perkins for the rest of our lives, or of Perkins’ life. I don't know how many times 1s. 3d. goes into £10:10:9d., but my brother, who has been staying with us for the week-end and knows all about these things, tells me I shall be straight again in about fourteen years. It seems a long time However, my wife is satisfied. After all, that is the great thing. Modern ANDALL: You know the story about the cowboy who went to a fashionable New York restaurant and said, “ Waiter, bring me forty dollars’ worth of ham and eggs Rocer: No. Let me hear it. Ranpat Well, the waiter replied, “We don’t serve half portions, sir.” if cost us RY FORD says, “The pacifist H* is the worst fighter in the world when he gets his back up.” The trou ble is, Henry, he always gets that back up after the scrap is over, comichooks