Life — September 24, 1925 — page 29: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is an advertisement disguised as humor, promoting Deities cigarettes. The cartoon depicts a bridge card game where one player has made a social blunder—raising their partner's bid despite holding a weak hand ("trickless"), which would cause the partnership to lose points. The satirical advice: if caught in this embarrassing moment at the card table, maintain composure by casually lighting a cigarette. The implication is that Deities cigarettes provide the sophisticated nonchalance needed to recover from social missteps among the upper-class card-playing set. The 1925 date places this in the Jazz Age, when bridge was a popular parlor game among the wealthy, and cigarette smoking was an accepted (even glamorous) social gesture. The humor relies on knowing bridge rules and the social anxiety of making public mistakes in polite company.