Life, 1922-05-18 · page 14 of 34
Life — May 18, 1922 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous sketch about a married couple's bedtime conversation. Benedict (likely referencing Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes) irritates his wife by lecturing about spiritualism and the afterlife when she wants to sleep. She repeatedly tries to end the conversation; he insists on continuing. The illustration shows a crowded social scene, unrelated to the bedroom dialogue—possibly depicting a spiritualist séance or party, given references to "spirits" in the text. The satire targets both Conan Doyle's famous interest in spiritualism (which was controversial at the time) and the stock marital complaint of one partner monopolizing conversation while the other wants rest. The "trouble" is the husband's pedantic, unstoppable lecturing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“sLIFE Twin Bed-Time Stories Conan Doyle Makes Trouble ICENE: The Bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Benedict New- leigh. Mrs. Newleigh is awake. Benedict seems to be asleep but husbands are such deceitful creatures that it is difficult to tell. Bep No. 1: Benedict! (No answer.) Benedict, there isn’t any use pretending to be asleep—I heard you cough a second ago. Bep No. 2 (sleepily): 1 didn't promise to love, honor and not to cough in my sleep when I got married. Bep No. 1 (there is a pained note in her voice): Don't try to be funny, Benedict. I want to talk seriously to you about Conan Doyle’s lecture on spiritualism. Bep No. 2: I don’t know anything about him and _ his spirits except that they spoiled a good writer of detective stories. Bep No. 1: Well, it’s time you learned something, then. He says there are spirits all around us. Bep No. 2 (yawning): Well, if they don’t make too much noise and will let me go to sleep, I don’t care. Good- night, honey. Bep No. 1: Benedict, I never saw such an exasperating person. You're NOT going to sleep until I’ve finished. Bep No. 2 (with resignation): If what Doyle says were as true as that he'd be worth listening to. Bep No. 1: He says he KNOWS there are spirits. He can prove it. Bep No. 2 (radiantly) : dreams, dear. Isn't that splendid! Happy Bev No. 1 (her voice becomes a trifle raised; perhaps she thinks Benedict isn’t paying attention): He's seen and has felt an ectoplasm . . . Bep No. 2 (with a faint show of interest): thing they are hunting down in South America, isn’t it? Bep No. 1 (angrily): No! Of course it isn’t. It's something that a medium exudes. Once his mother appeared to him through this ectoplasm. He felt the substance. He says it feels likea worm. . . Bep No. 2 (turning over): but I’m no ectoplasm. Bev No. 1 (softly): Heaven was like... Bep No. 2: Some place where everyone's deaf and dumb and can sleep as much as they wish without interruption, I suppose? Bep No. 1 (with a hurt note in her voice): 1 don't see how you can talk like that to your wife, Benedict. But I WILL finish, so there. He says that there are marriages in Heaven just as there are here. Bep No. 2: Oh, death—there is thy sting! Bev No. 1 (sobbing): Oh, oh, you don't I-love me any more. I knew‘it, I (sobbing on all six now) Oh—Oh— OBE ese (We have been keeping the stage hands up. Let the cur- tain be lowered.) That's that I've felt like a worm often And, Benedict—he told what T.H.L, in i li “ ‘il ip nL) “Oh, Henry! I am so glad I found you. It’s been like hunting a needle in the haystack.” eve cloc min N put A thin comicbooks.com