Life, 1922-03-23 · page 7 of 34
Life — March 23, 1922 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The illustration depicts a small boy holding a peanut, facing three elephants across a fence. The caption reads: "Little Boy: If I give them this peanut they might get to fightin' over it." This is a straightforward humor cartoon playing on the common practice of feeding peanuts to zoo or circus elephants. The joke's appeal lies in the boy's innocent but illogical reasoning—one small peanut among three large elephants wouldn't realistically cause conflict. The humor comes from the absurdity of his expectation that such a trivial reward would spark fighting among these massive animals. The accompanying prose pieces ("Friends" and "Mood") are unrelated literary content typical of Life magazine's mixed editorial format.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Little Boy: If I give them this peanut they might get to fightin’ over it. Friends FEAR friends: friends who invite me to the play and then arrange it so that I pay for the tickets, friends who ask me to dinner for the sole purpose of “getting me in on the ground floor of a good thing” that goes fluey three months later, friends who drop in on me just as | am pre- paring for bed and sit for hours, relating long and uninter- esting narratives, friends who introduce me to women I eventually marry, friends who tell me I am the only one who really understands them and then touch me for fifty simoleons, friends who ask me why I never call them up, friend. who stop with me for over night and stay two months. friends who are always being divorced and remar- ried to the wives of my other friends, friends who sell me a cases of their pre-war stock which turns out to he wood alcohol, friends who insist that I join the Knights of Pythias, friends who are always getting up house parties, friend- who, when they espy me with some toothsome little doll, greet me as their long-lost brother and refuse to leave, friend. who are invariably getting arrested and dragging my name into their undignified escapades, friends who always know (ie truth about Wall Street, which horse is going to win, and the right tip on German marks, friends who, un- nviter, fill their cases with my best cigarettes, drink my finest Perrier-Jouet, conduct long distance conversations for hours over my telephone, and run away with my wife, friends who make jokes at my funeral. few choice Mood NLESS I yield my love to you, you swear In strangely distant countries must you dwell; Denied this heart of mine, you could not bear These dear, familiar scenes we've loved so well. To-morrows that will come, you could not face With only pain to bear you company, Among the whispering memories of this place, The little, intimate things that speak of me. Where mighty mountains rear their cruel height, The world between us, would you dwell, apart; Where curious peace, that comes with tropic night, Answers the bitter question of your heart. The lilac bush, that bends with bloom in May, The winding path, the arbor where we sat, These things should know you nevermore, you Ah, love, if I could only count on that! Dorothy Parker. say,— A Complicated Case the doctor suffering from?” “Mrs. Brown's rheumatism, Mr. Smith's chronic dyspep- sia, Miss Green’s nervous depression and Mrs. Jones’ weak heart.” “And what is comicbooks.com