Life, 1922-06-15 · page 11 of 36
Life — June 15, 1922 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous domestic sketch rather than political satire. The illustration shows two men in conversation at a doorway, with the caption indicating a visitor has called to see Mrs. Tatterly, who died that morning. The joke's premise is absurd bureaucratic literalism: the visitor insists on seeing Mrs. Tatterly anyway, creating an awkward social situation. The humor derives from the visitor's apparent inability or unwillingness to accept that the woman has died—he persists in his stated intention despite this obvious obstacle. The accompanying text describes George demonstrating a new fire extinguisher device (a "Bingo" bottle), with the main satire targeting the product's dubious effectiveness and George's overly enthusiastic sales pitch.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
thing,” he said. “It’s made of a spe- cial chemical—” “What's that?” “Well, it’s—Pritt told me it was —damn it—it’s—bi—-di—tri—bisul- phate, or something.” « side, perhaps?” . it’s not that. Now I want you to buy three of them—one for each floor. You fasten it to the wall —like this.” George held the dummy Bingo over the mantelpiece between two Japanese prints. It did not look well. “When an outbreak of fire is no- ticed in the house,” he continued, you simply seize the bottle, and tear jt from the bracket—like this—thus removi the stopper.” George bottle and tore it from the thus removing the Jap- anese prints, and the china shep- herdess, but not the stopper. “What do I do now?” “You fling it into the heart of the flame,” said George with enthu- siasm. “By the way, this bottle’s tremendously strong. Pritt says you can open a packing-case with it—” “Is that a good thing?” I inquired. George paid no attention. “It’s like no other extinguisher on the market. You can hammer in nails with it. You can’t break it!” he seized tl mantel | thought the whole idea of xtinguisher was that it would at all,” said George; and in his eyes was a holy light. “I can throw it on the floor—thus—and—" George threw the dummy Bingo violently upon the floor. It broke into a thousand pieces, zed at the pieces in pro- nee. scratched his head rue- fully. “I made sure I'd got that bit about the packing-case right. This must be a faulty sample.” “Perhaps it was,” I agreed. “Try the fire with one of the ‘ht came back into his eyes. se!” he said; and seizing the second Bingo he thrust it into the grate, and madly heaved the coals allout. As far as I could see the experiment was strikingly suc- cessful. The bottle did not appear to break, but there was a blue flash, and a great tongue of flame shot out into the room. George jumped back hastily, and I smelt the smell of singeing. In the grate there was an angry blaze. Columns of black S SJ Ss Is Mrs. Tatterly at home? Servant (severely): Mr. Tatterly died this morning. Visitor: I daresay; but I wish to see Mrs. Tatterly. smoke rolled up the chimney. If I had not seen George put the fire-ex- tinguisher in it, I should have said that the fire was on fire. He thought so, too, apparently. For “Quick!” he cried, “the other one!” He seized the third Bingo and tore it from the bracket, accord- ing to directions. This time the stopper duly removed itself, and George impetuously poured the whole pint of peroxide on the heart of the flames. There was another blinding flash, and the heart of the flames dilated into a roaring fur- nace. The heat was terrific. The room was filled with suffocating smoke. Choking, we withdrew to the door. The two armchairs beside the hearth caught fire. I tottered to the telephone and coughed an urgent call for the Fire Brigade. Afterwards, the firemen said that they had never known a fire of such small beginnings endure with such obstinacy. The flames had some peculiar quality in them; the more hoses you turned on them, the more fiercely they blazed. As we walked away from the ruins of my house, George said,—cheerfully enough in the circumstances, “That’s the worst of these durned samples.” And I said, cheerfully, I think, “Any- how, we've broken the record.” “What do you mean?” “This year there will be 4,399,207 fires.” A. P. H. comicbooks.com