Life — July 14, 1921 — page 25: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains three separate comic vignettes satirizing early 20th-century social attitudes: **Top left**: A laborer's doctor prescribes walking for exercise, so he directs his chauffeur to return the car to the garage. The joke mocks the absurdity of wealthy people following medical advice while maintaining their luxuries—he'll "walk to work" but apparently still employs a driver. **Top right**: Two figures discuss whether ghosts make noise in what appears to be a spooky setting. The humor lies in the brother's illogical reasoning: since he hears nothing, there must be ghosts present (rather than concluding ghosts simply aren't there). **Bottom**: A man arriving late to what appears to be a formal gathering is welcomed because the hostess needed "another man to fill in." The satire targets upper-class social conventions where guest lists matter more than genuine connection, and women's dependence on securing male attendance for respectability. All three jokes reflect period anxieties about class pretension, superstition, and rigid social protocols.