Life, 1926-07-08 · page 17 of 41
Life — July 8, 1926 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a short story illustrated with period drawings. The narrative follows a mail thief who boards a train and steals a mail sack, escaping with a bullet wound to his shoulder. The story appears to be a crime/adventure tale rather than political satire. The top illustration shows "Abdul Dev, the Great Fakir" relaxing at a hotel—a separate, unrelated vignette. The lower section includes a lawyer's cartoon dialogue about divorce: a man tells his lawyer he wants another divorce, to which the lawyer responds he'll need to pay for it. This is social satire about the costs and complications of repeated divorces—a commentary on marriage and legal expenses rather than political commentary. The page represents typical early-20th-century magazine entertainment content mixing fiction, illustration, and light social humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ABDUL DEY, THE GREAT FAKIR, SPENDS A QUIET AFTERNOON RESTING IN HIS HOTEL the risk of his life he swung aboard the rushing train, stood for a moment on a perilous perch between two rock- ing cars and then made his way over the roofs to the mail car. Forcing his way into the car, he leveled a revolver at the sur- prised mail clerk, seized a mail sack, and swung open the sliding door to make his getaway. As he leaped into the night, two shots crackled behind him and he felt the sting of a bullet in his shoul der. He struck heavily and rolled down the embankment into some underbrush. For a moment he was afraid that he was seriously injured. But the mail sack was still in his grasp and he realized that he had timed his jump per- feetly. Rising, he made his way through the underbrush to a spot in the woods where he had hidden a flashlight. The wound in his shoulder had stopped bleeding, but it The Mail Thief was beginning to grow stiff. The skin on one side of his face had been scraped off. His ankle hurt infernally, Nevertheless, his eyes were alight with interest as he slit the pouch and dumped the contents into the small focus of the torch. DO YOU INTEND TO DO—MARRY AGAIN? “I SUPPOSE I'LL HAVE TO, IF I WANT ANOTHER DIVORCE.” An hour later he was still sitting there, dazed. Before him lay four- teen contributions to the Atlantic Monthly, eighty-four post cards marked “Wish you were here” and “The view from here is lovely,” six- teen removal notices from the tailor, thirty-nine circulars offering the complete works of Joseph Conrad for one copy of Lesson No. 1 a course in electrical engin ing, three hundred sugge: tions for a slogan for a manu- facturer of bathtubs, and one post-dated check for $7.85. Edwin H. Blanchard, Br-r-r! “ ND this,” i id the artist, “is my latest frie “How perfectly wonder- ful!” said the appreciative flapper. “It actually makes me shiver to look at it!” Lawyer: Now THAT YOU HAVE YOUR DIVORCE, WHAT HE current wages of sin is a musical comedy con- tract. comicbooks.com