Life, 1921-09-22 · page 15 of 34
Life — September 22, 1921 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes a waiter's excuse-making at a restaurant. A diner requests fish, and the waiter responds that "the fish is not well to-day"—personifying the food as if it were a sick person rather than acknowledging genuine supply or quality issues. The joke mocks both the pretentious language of upscale dining establishments and servers who hide behind euphemistic explanations instead of being straightforward about unavailable dishes. The caption suggests this is a "regular customer," implying the establishment regularly makes such absurd excuses. This reflects early 20th-century satirical commentary on affectation in restaurant culture, where excessive formality masked poor service or limited actual offerings.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
September 22 Summer Resort News as It Ought to Be Written R. JOSEPH HOWLAND GLIMP, of Baltimore, had seven blow-outs during his motoring trip through the Berkshires. Raoul Murphy, proprietor of Cliff, House, Minniwonka, W an- nounced that the shortage of visitors at his hotel this summer was due to the fact that the roof lea Harriet Gillick developed malignant malaria during her sojourn at Ocean- air Park, , and is said to be in a critical condition. Guests at Welcome Inn state that they used to think that the food there couldn't possibly be any worse, but that they were wrong. . average temperature in Sea Breeze, Me., for the months of July and August was 96 F. in the sun. (There wasn’t any shade.) John L. Fink, of Ogden, landed a three-pound perch in Trout Lake, Idaho—this being considered the largest catch of the season, the ss VK ny % YY, This has been a gala year for mos- quitoes in Paradise Rest, N. J., but Hor- ace Mopp, Chairman of the local Cham- ber of Commerce, predicts confidently that there will be an even larger num- ber of the little invertebrates at the popular resort next season. There have been no fewer than eleven cases of typhoid fever this season at Freshwater Inn, Cold Spring, North Dakota. In answer to various critics, Frank- lin Quibble, of the Grandview Hotel, announced that his hostelry would be all that its name implies if he could persuade the railroad company to move the station. Reassuring “Want to take a chance on an auto- mobile, mister? Only a dollar.” “But I don’t want an automobile, young man.” “That's all right, mister. in 1 Maybe you A Regular Customer “I think T'll have some fish.” Sonnet To a Bartender’s Guide O SWEET and precious tome—thou treasury Of wealth my golden youth-tide lived and knew, . Now come to wz bing through ch fibre, surge of e, and send a-throb- glowing ecstasy ! No bibliophile, thrilled with discovery Of some “First—Uncut,” gives it half the due I render, lovingly, this night to you, Compendium of vanished nepenthe! No Elzevir, no Aldine can compare To thy chaste imprint, old friend Rich- ard K No tree calf rare Holds half your charm, nor ever can convey A tithe the vibrant joy your pages fair Conjure, to haunt me, of your bygone binding and no missal J. S. Sarasohn. ad ali) Th \ NY Uf “Pardon, Monsieur, the fish is not well to-day.” comicbooks.com