Life, 1924-07-24 · page 25 of 36
Life — July 24, 1924 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical pieces from *Life* magazine: **"The Square Root of Pie"** is a humorous short story about a second wife constantly failing to match her predecessor's baking. The twist: when she serves a cheap, store-bought pie, her husband praises it—revealing his complaints were never about quality, only about comparing her unfavorably to his first wife. The satire mocks men who idealize former spouses and set impossible standards. **The top cartoon** depicts a boxing match where spectators cheer. The dialogue suggests crude class commentary about dental work and grooming products—likely satirizing working-class or immigrant concerns about appearance and status symbols (gold teeth). **"Discharged!"** is a brief joke where a magistrate approves of a speeding driver because the driver found a reliable cook—a luxury the magistrate also desperately wants. It satirizes how the servant shortage (likely post-WWI) was so acute that even traffic violations seemed trivial by comparison. The barber cartoon caption references similar working-class preoccupations with hair tonics and appearance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Fighter: E upon a time there was a girl who married a man who had been married before. According to him, his first wife had been a paragon of all the virtues, but far and beyond everything had been her skill in baking. Her pies were beyond compare. Now, the second wife loved her hus- band and she desired in every way to make him happy, and since the mention of pie made his eyes light up, she set to work to bake one for him. It was a good pie, brown and crisp, with a thin, flaky crust, but alas! it was eaten in silence and with no more than toleration. The second wife bit her lip and tried again—with the same result. And so it went, attempt after attempt failing to meet the standard set by the lamented first wife. Then, one day, the second wife, having played bridge until it was too late to pre- pare a dessert for dinner, hurried home, very much Barber: A LITTLE HAIR TONIC, MADAM? EIGHT ROUN’S 0’ NUTTIN’ BUT RING-O'-ROSY! TO YOU I SUPPOSE A GOLD TOOTH MEANS NOTHIN’, The Square Root ot Pie ashamed of herself. stopped at a bakery, and because her mind was on the prize she might have won in the last hand, she bought a pie On the way she —just a cheap factory-made _ pic, clammy within and stiff without, and heavily disguised with spices. Still not realizing what she was do- ing, she served that pie! Only when her husband exclaimed aloud did she BALD SPOT BACK HERE. 1 SEE A SLIGHT understand what she had done. She was ready to faint, but halted half- way when her husband cried out: “At last, my dear, you've succeeded in baking the kind of pie I'm used to!” Moral: fashion. The carly bird sets the Bertram Bloch. Discharged! AGISTRATE: The of- ficer says you were go- ing forty miles an hour. Supursanite: I was, Your Honor. I had just received word from an employment agency that they had found a cook for me who was sure to stay at least two months. Macistrate (who also lives in the country): Officer, give this gentleman my machine. It does sixty. said Lucrezia Bor- she squeezed the fruit of the deadly nightshade into a victim's drink, “is cer- tainly the berries.” comicbooks.com