Life, 1920-05-27 · page 11 of 44
Life — May 27, 1920 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate humorous pieces: 1. **"Two Hats"** (top): A sketch shows a salesman struggling to sell hats. The joke is that he picked one hat that received "favorable comment" and tried to duplicate it for the city's wealthy clientele, but it failed to sell. The satire mocks both salesman overconfidence and the unpredictability of fashion trends. 2. **"A Railroad Mystery"** (right): Brief text humorously questions why trains depart punctually if they truly intend to go elsewhere, given they can't know beforehand whether they'll stop. It's absurdist humor about railroad reliability. 3. **"Too Late"** (bottom right): A short dialogue where Briggs and Griggs discuss the Pilgrims' landing—Griggs notes it's "too late" to do anything about it now, a dry joke about historical inevitability.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Y Rect ii mM) a run bari y! “DID YOU GET ANY REPLIES TO YOUR ADVERTISEMENT FOR A COOK?” “ONE WOMAN “PHONED THIS MORNING, BUT SLE HAD THE WRONG NUMBER.” Two Hats large, “at gentleman was trying on a straw. None of them ] HA} watehed the saleswoman in the hat department: for ed just right according to his cye, and all of them looked q fine according to the s. at man couldn't make thing like twenty minutes. The customer had tried on i up his mind to buy. Finally the salesman placed a selection on some ‘iteen hats, and wanted to buy at least three of them— p f 7 . the customer's head and tl played his »ecard: “ This is and |! the money to buy one. The saleswoman picked up one ne:customer sihead-and then played his trump’ car sce hes : the style of hat that half of the men in the city will wear this oft ree that had received favorable comment and, holding ae ° . . 7 season.” Net result: One hat sold te tarm’s length and cying it artistically, observed: “1 assur, sou that this hat will not be duplicated in the city this A Railroad Mystery seas N rs One ha ¢ . . Net result: One hat sold. . HY does a train that starts out from a station as if it were A ¥ minutes later, over in the men’s hat department, a . > really going somewhere, suddenly stop? It never goes far cnough so that it couldn't have known beforehand that it might an have to stop at that particular place. This being so, why doesn't the train wait until it is assured that it will go on without step- ping? Nobody knows. Probably nobody will ever know Too Late Brices: Well, I sce this year they are going to make a big fuss about the landing of the Pilgrim fathers. view! UM HAVING A LONG CHASE THROUGIE Griccs: But it’s too late to do anything about it now. It THs TUNNEL can't be helped comicbooks.com